Cheetah3D Manual

Cheetah3D is a lean, fast and elegant 3D modelling, rendering and animation tool for Mac OS X with an easy
learning curve. It offers many tools from powerful polygon editing over advanced subdivision modelling to
boolean operations and Bezier splines.
To find out more about each of the individual features of Cheetah3D, click one of the topics below.
Introduction
Welcome to
Cheetah3D
A beginners guide
Objects
User Interface
Window Layout
3D View
Object Browser
Property Editor
Modes
Objects and Tags
Tutorials
Hello world
Axe
Champagne flute
Making Mac OS X
icons
Soccer ball
HDRI Rendering
Illustrator to
Cheetah3D (new)
Rendering
Renderer
Materials
Material
shader
Animation
Scene Objects
Camera
Folder
Point light
Spot light
Distant light
Area light
Polygon Objects
Parametric Objects
Box
Ball
Cone
Cylinder
Disc
Torus
Plane
Polyhedra
Stairs
Relief
Creator Objects
Chain
Boolean
Extrude
Lathe
Polyplane
Subdivision
Sweep
Symmetry
Spline Objects
Circle
Cog
Flower
Helix
n-Edge
Rect
Star
Text
Modifier
Build
Tools
Common Tools
Select
Transform
Mirror
Insert Point
Set Value
Quantize
Burn Transform
Import Children
Polygon Tools
Array
Bridge
Catmull-Clark
Subdivide
Clone
Collapse
Cover
Create Polygon
Crumple
Disconnect
Edge Rotate
Extrude
Fill Hole
Flip Normal
Inner Extrude
Jigsaw
Linear Subdivide
Magnet
Normal Move
Normal Rotate
Normal Scale
Optimize
Point slide
Ring cut
Scalpel
Shell
Split
Triangulate
Weld
Timeline
Key Editor
F-Curve Editor
Scripting (work in
progress)
Executing a script
Static Objects
OS
Math
Dynamic Objects
Doc
File
Matrix
Object
Tag
Vector
Global functions
Bulge
Displacement
Shear
Spherify
SubDiv
Symmetry
Taper
Twist
Warp
Tags
Object Tag
Mode Tag
UV Tag
Material Tag
Fog Tag
HDRI Tag
Radiosity Tag
Render Tag
Spline Tools
Create Spline
Hard
Interpolation
Soft Interpolation
Equal Tangent
Length
Equal Tangent
Direction
Join Segments
Break Segment
Reverse
Sequence
Other Information
Hints and Tips

Glossary of Terms
Visit the Cheetah3D web
site
Buy Cheetah3D
Welcome!
First off, thank you for using Cheetah3D. Hopefully you'll find it easy enough to use and learn (the extensive
documentation will guide you through the process even if you're new to 3D modelling), simple and
uncluttered enough not to be annoying, quick and efficient enough to be a pleasure to use, and powerful
enough to impress you!
Many 3D modellers and renderers are not only highly-priced, but they're also difficult to learn. That's
because the makers of those pieces of software want people to think that using such software is complex
and only for the people who can afford to hefty price tag. What Cheetah3D attempts to do is bring powerful
and easy 3D modelling and rendering capabilities to everyone.
Even better, Cheetah3D has been written from the ground up for Mac OS X using Cocoa. Its not just a simple
recompile of some user-unfriendly X11 modeller which ends up looking, feeling and behaving like a notvery-Macintosh piece of software. Cheetah3D uses all the Mac OS X components we're all familiar with so
you'll feel right at home using it.
Now what?
If you're new to 3D modelling and want to learn some basics, take a look at the beginner's guide. This will
tell you which are the most important things to learn about first, and will then guide you onto some simple
tutorials to get you started.
If you're familiar with 3D modelling and would like to find out how to do the things you're used to, take a
look at the index to see the range of powerful tools you have available to you. Hopefully you'll find that
Cheetah3D is more than capable.
If you're a seasoned 3D modelling veteran, and need to see some of the really impressive stuff you can
create with Cheetah3D, take a look at the Renderer specification (you'll see that despite its ease of use,
Cheetah3D can produce some really stunning images). If you've got a live internet connection, you could
even take a look at the online gallery of images that have been made using Cheetah3D.
2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.
A Beginner's Guide
So, you're new to 3D modelling and want to learn how to get started. You'll be glad you tried Cheetah3D,
since you'll soon see how easy it is to pick up, and when you've gained more confidence, you'll realise that
Cheetah3D is powerful enough to keep serving you. To get started, click on each linked phrase to find out
more, and then use your browser's Back button to return back here to carry on. If you come across a word or
term you're not sure about, check out the Glossary of Terms, which describes common words as simply as
possible.
First of all, you should familiarise yourself with Cheetah3D's main window, which contains the 3D View
(where you'll see a basic version of the 3D scene you're creating).
The objects you see in the 3D View are also represented in a hierarchical list, known as the Object Browser,
which is in the lower-right corner of the main window. This list is used to arrange the objects logically
(rather than physically, as the 3D View does), select objects for editing, and to control the additional data
associated with each object (known as Tags).
You'll notice that when you select an object in the Object Browser, the Property Editor (at the top right of the
window) changes to tell you all the details you can modify. Making changes in the Property Editor results in
realtime changes in the 3D View, which is a great way of trying things out. The lower portion of the Property
Editor changes depending upon which tool is currently active.
The Toolbar at the top of the window gives you access to the Select Tool, the Transform Tool (and the X, Y
and Z transform lock icons), the four Mode buttons, and a range of drop-down menus that give you easy to
use objects, and a cow button that renders your 3D scene! On the far right of the toolbar, you'll find the
Materials button, which you can use to create materials that you can then assign to objects in your scene.
You should now know enough about Cheetah3D to be able to try the Hello World tutorial, in which you'll
create your very own world! (Dont panic, it's easier than it sounds).
When you're comfortable with the things you've tried so far, you can go on to learn how to effectively use the
different Modes. The second tutorial, in which you'll make a model of an axe, will guide you through the
process of editing a box in polygon mode (where you transform individual surfaces of an object), using
some of the advanced modelling tools, as well as introducing you to the powerful technique of subdivision
modelling.
Finally, in order to introduce you to some more of the modelling tools, as well as the renderer that comes
with Cheetah3D, the last tutorial will guide you through making a realistic looking Champagne flute,
complete with accurate glass reflections and refractions.
Now that you're comfortable enough to explore the rest of the tools and features available to you, you may
also want to read the Hints and Tips that will make your use of Cheetah3D that much easier.
Happy modelling!
Glossary of Terms
Alpha channel
Images in a computer are usually represented using multiple channels, typically one to represent the image's
Red component, one for it's Green and one it's Blue. If the image needs to contain information about how
transparent parts of the image are, this will be stored in a fourth channel, the Alpha channel.
Ambient
A scene's lighting will affect the way the materials used look. Usually the light from a lightsource hits objects
and makes them brighter at certain parts, whilst others parts will be in complete darkness. However, you
may want some materials to have a certain base level of light, meaning that those parts of an object that
aren't facing a light source will still be lit somewhat. The ambient part of a material determines how much
light to allow onto the unlit parts. Think of ambient light a bit like ambient sound - in the background.
Backface Culling
When a camera's wireframe property is on, all objects will be shown as wireframes. However, by default you
can see both the front-facing as well as back-facing surfaces this way, which can be visually confusing.
Turning on backface culling will hide all the surfaces that would be hidden from you if the objects weren't
hollow, making the scene easier to understand.
Bank
Used in rotational parameters to describe how much an object tilts around it's Z axis. If a plane is facing
forward with the Z axis running from front to back, the bank parameter controls how much left or right the
plane will tilt, causing the wing tips to turn up or down.
Beziercurve
A set of control points that determine the way in which a line travels from the first point to the last. Each
point isn't actually touched by the line, but rather they act as a guide to "steer" the curve in the right
direction.
Bezierspline
A set of control points, with additional tangential control points, that defines how a curve travels from one
point to the next. The curve will touch each point, but the tangential control points will determine at what
angle and how steeply the curve arrives and departs from each point.
Bounding box
Every object can be shown (as default) as a 3D object, but it is possible to view objects as just their
bounding boxes, which means that they will appear hollow and only a cube that completely encloses the
object will be shown. This can be useful for when you need to align object edges, or to check if objects
collide.
Bump map
A material defines how an object will look when rendered. The material defines its colour and how it reflects
light, but you can also simulate subtle bumps and textures in the surface of an object by specifying a bump
map, which is a monochrome image where the darker the parts of the image, the higher the supposed bump
on the object. Bump maps affect reflections, light refractions and other parts of the renderer, and when used
properly can help produce very realistic images.
Crease
When using subdivision modelling, the surfaces between existing edges are smoothly transitioned, resulting
in smooth, curved surfaces. If you want to make creases or sharp edges in a subdivision surface, you set one
or more edges to be creased.
Creator object
A type of object that accepts some form of input from it's children (ie, objects that are "within" it in the
hierarchical Object Browser) and produces some new object as a result. A Creator object is able to do this in
realtime, without destroying the original object, meaning that any changes you make to the origin child
object will be reflected in the Creator Object's results.
Diffuse
The diffuse term of a material determines how much the light from a lightsource spreads across the surface
of the object. Diffuse light spreads evenly without a clear edge (unlike specular light), and differs from
ambient light in that is does not appear on polygons that face completely away from a light source.
Emissive/Emission
The emissive term of a material determines the power of all light that comes off an object, irrespective of
the orientation of the polygons or their relationship to any light source. By default this is black, meaning
that there is no light coming from unlit parts of an object (as you'd expect for normal objects). Objects such
as light bulbs would have a white emissive term.
Environment map
Materials can be reflective, but there are two ways this can be simulated. The simpler (read: cheating) way of
doing this is to define six bitmap images that represent the background above, below, to the left and right,
infront and behind the object. When an environment map is specified, these six bitmaps are used to
simulate a reflection on the surface of an object. A stereotypical environment map is provided for you in the
Examples folder: it shows some clouds in a blue sky over a rocky mountain range with a lake in the valley.
Fresnel (pronounced freh-nell)
Scientifically, a fresnel reflection term describes how a portion of light that is reflected off a surface interacts
with another medium (usually air) at the point where the two media touch, and occurs due to the different
refractive indices of the two media. In real-world terms, use of the the fresnel term for reflective and
transparent materials will add an extra level of realism to your renders.
Group
Any point, edge or polygon may be part of a group of similar items that together form an entire visual
object. However, each actual object can contain many such groups, and so often you need to select groups
of such items. The Select Group function expands a selection from one point/edge/polygon to include all
the items in that group, allowing you to quickly select an entire visual object.
Heading
Used in rotational parameters to describe how much an object turns around it's X axis. If a plane is facing
forward with the Z axis running from front to back, the heading parameter controls in what direction the
plane is flying (ie, 0=North, 90=West, 180=South, 290=East).
nGon
A polygon with any number of edges which makes up a surface, as opposed to triangles or quads, which
always have three or four edges respectively.
Normal
Used to describe the direction in which a polygon is facing. Usually, polygons are single-sided, meaning
you'll only see one side of them shaded. The other side is shown as dark grey and is unlit. Each polygon has
a normal associated with it that determines the angle in which the surface is facing. If you flip a normal, the
surface will face the opposite way. Think of a normal as pointing outwards perpendicularly from a polygon's
center.
NURBS (stands for Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline)
A type of spline that, like the Beziercurve, defines a line that smoothly travels along a path "steered" by
control points. In NURBS, however, the weights between the control points are not equally spaced, allowing
you to more accurately define a spline's path.
OpenGL
The name of a technology, built-in to Mac OS X and other operating systems, which provides realtime 3D
views. Cheetah3D uses OpenGL to provide the 3D View so you can see your scene. OpenGL is not a renderer,
which is why it cannot display the advanced material properties you can define in Cheetah3D - for that
purpose you need to make use of Cheetah3D's very on built-in renderer.
Origin
Every coordinate system has an origin, which is usually 0,0,0 relative to the object. An object is scaled,
moved and rotated around this origin point. Every new object in Cheetah3D is, by default, located at the
world's origin of 0,0,0 (which is shown were the X, Y and Z axis cross).
Parametric Polygon Object
Used to describe a object that is predetermined in Cheetah3D (such as a sphere) that has parameters that
can be changed to determine the shape. Parametric Polygon Objects are very powerful since they give you
the flexibility to try out different shapes very quickly, but they cannot be edited in Polygon, Edge or Point
mode without first being made editable (which turns them into raw polygonobjects).
Pitch
Used in rotational paramteres to describe how much an object turns around it's Y axis. If a plane is facing
forward with the Z axis running from front to back, the pitch parameter controls whether the plane is
climbing upwards, or descending downwards, causing the nose and tail to tip up or down.
Point
The simplest part of any geometry, it is a single point in 3D space with an X, Y and Z coordinate. Two points
can make an edge, and three or more edges can make a polygon. Points can be shared between polygons,
meaning that polygons can intrinsically be attached to each other.
Polygon
A single surface that is made of up atleast 3 points in a 3D space. A three edged polygon is a triangle, a four
edged polygon is a quad, and any polygon that has five or more edges is known as an nGon.
Polygonobject
An object that is made up of atleast 1 polygon, usually many. Raw polygonobjects differ from Parametric
Polygon Objects in that there are no editable parameters that define a shape. Raw polygon objects can be
edited in Polygon, Edge or Point mode to change the shape of an object using the Make Editable menu item
(or, quicker, double clicking on an object tag in the Object Browser).
Position
Everything in a 3D space has a position, which is defined by three coordinates known technically as a vector:
X (left to right), Y (bottom to top) and Z (front to back). Note that these descriptions are only vague, the
precise location and orientation of the camera may result in different interpretations of a vector (think "your"
left versus someone who is facing you's "left")
Quad
A four edged polygon. Many of the parametric polygon objects are made up of quads. Some tools and
creator objects, such as the subdivision and boolean operators, can only effectively work on quads. The
subdivision tool produces crumples and creases if used with triangles.
Quantize
Describes the mathematical process of "snapping" a number to a grid. The floor grid you see in Cheetah3D
is, in it's initial state, made of a grid where each division is 0.1. Therefore quantizing an object's points to
0.1 will make them align to the grid you see. You're more likely to choose your own quantization values
however.
Raytracing
A rendering technique that involves simulating the path of light photons coming from a light source and
bouncing (or otherwise) off materials before entering the camera.
Reflection
When light hits a surface, some (or all) of it may be bounced back, just like a mirror does. Few objects are
100% reflective since there will always be some light absorbed by the object.
Refraction
When light passes through one medium into another (ie, from glass into air), it's direction may be altered this is due to the different densities of the two media. The result of this bent light is that you see a distorted
representation of what appears on the other side of the object. Think of how a glass distorts what you see as
you look through it. Lenses are designed to intentionally refract light in order to magnify the image you see.
Even a window refracts light, but the effect is minimised due to the relative thinness of the glass and the
evenness of the glass' surface - remember how old windows that have bulged a bit cause distortions?
Renderer
A part of Cheetah3D that produces a photo-realistic image of your scene using raytracing techniques.
Rotation
Every object has a position and a rotation value, determining where the object will be, and also in what
direction the object points. The rotation value is represented as three values, H, P and B, which stand for
Heading, Pitch and Bank (see each of those terms for precise descriptions). Technically, these three values
are known as Euler angles.
Scale
Every object can be resized. This resizing can happen unevenly (ie, an object can be stretched or squashed).
This is done by providing three values, X, Y and Z which determine how much the object should be scaled in
each axis. These three values are known technically as a scaling vector.
Shaded
In the OpenGL 3D View, a shaded polygon is one that smoothly simulates the light hitting a polygon. It is not
entirely accurate since the variations in the light hitting the surface are determined by the normals of the
points that make up the polygon. This means that if you have a very large single polygon, the corners of that
polygon will be lit correctly, but everything inbetween will only be shaded smoothly (like a "gradiant" in
Photoshop). A spotlight on a very large single polygon will not look right in the 3D View because of this. In
order to improve realism, you need to break the polygon into many smaller polygons so that there will be
more variation inbetween the corners - this can be done by increasing the Sections properties if you're using
a Parametric object, or the subdivision tool for more complex objects. Note that this behaviour is absolutely
normal for OpenGL. The renderer does not have this limitation.
Specular
This describes the highly directional light that bounces off a material, and only occurs where the light
reflection is at it's most. Visually, the specular light appears as bright, highly defined (yet soft-edged) ring
around the reflection of the light source. There are two types of specular reflection, Plastic and Metal, and
the size can be changed accordingly. Also, the Specular Color can be used to tint the light coming off the
material. A specular color of black will remove the light reflection entirely, which is useful for making matt
objects (such as paper, walls, most floors etc).
Spline
A line made up of two or more points. There are several types of spline: A linear spline merely travels from
one point to the next. For information of the other types, look up the individual definitions of Bezierspline,
Beziercurve and NURBS. Once a spline has been produced, it can be used to make a polygon, or to control
how some of the Creator Objects behave.
Subdivision
The process of smoothing the variations in a range of polygons so that the resulting surface, made up of
many more individual polygons, curves smoothly. In Cheetah3D, edges can be defined as creases so that
when the object is subdivded, those edges will be sharp whilst the rest will be smoothed.
Tag
A collection of parameters that apply to objects that help define the objects behaviour or appearance. In
Cheetah3D, one object can have many tags that relate to its smoothness, materials, appearance, shape,
textures etc.
Texture
When a texture map is specified as part of a material, a bitmap is "wrapped onto" the object's surface, so
that the object's colour isn't entirely determined by the various lighting parameters of the material. Texture
maps are useful for improving the realism of an object, since you can draw fine details or imperfections onto
a texture map and this will show up on your objects. When you use texture maps in Cheetah3D, it is likely
you will also need to add a UV tag to the object in question, since this defines how the texture map should
be wrapped onto the object.
Transform
The name given to any operation which alters the position, orientation or scaling of an object. In Cheetah3D,
the transform tool allows you to do all three of these operations by selecting the appropriate widget on the
transform guide, as well as allowing you to limit your transform to one particular axis by clicking and
dragging on the desired axis widget.
Transparency
A material can be set to allow some (or all) light to travel through it, much like glass or an opaque object
would. The reflection colour can be changed from white to let the material "tint" the light, like coloured glass
would.
Triangle
A three sided polygon. Some of the operations you do in Cheetah3D may produce objects that contain
triangles. Watch out for this, since other tools do not work well with triangles, only quads (such as the
subdivide tool).
UV Tags
When a material that contains a texture map is applied to an object, the object's polygon arrangement will
very much affect how the texture looks. The UV tag allows special adaptation of the coordinates used to map
the texture onto the object. The U and V offset numbers are used to slide the texture so that it aligns
properly, and the U and V scale numbers can be used to make sure the scale of the texture map is correct.
Additionally, changes to the map type allow different ways in which the texture is wrapped onto the shape.
Vector
Three numbers that, when taken together, describe a position in a 3D space: X, Y and Z. See position for
more details.
Wireframe
An object which is set to show as wireframe will show up in the 3D View as hollow, and only its edges will be
displayed. If you set the Camera's wireframe property to true, all objects will be shown in wireframe.
3D View
The 3D View makes up the main portion of the Cheetah3D window. It shows you an OpenGL preview of your
scene, and supplements it with guidelines, handles and matrices that allow you to modify your scenes layout.
A typical 3D View, showing three shapes and a light object (which is currently selected, hence the Transform
gizmo)
The position and rotation of the active camera can be changed conveniently by the small icon bar above the
3D view. These icons only effect the active camera. The functions of these icons from left to right are:
select the camera projection

select different view styles (see below)
focus on selected object
move the camera to the left, right, up and down
zoom camera in and out along the viewing direction
rotate camera around the selected object
rotate camera to the left, right, up and down
change into the quad view mode
The camera position can also be changed by pressing a key combination + dragging the mouse in the 3D
view:
If you have a one button mouse:
alt + mouse drag: rotate camera around the selected object
alt + command + mouse drag: move camera in and out

alt + ctrl + mouse drag: move camera left, right, up and down
alt + shift + mouse drag: turn camera

If you have a three button mouse:
alt + left mouse button drag: rotate camera around the selected object
alt + middle mouse button drag: move camera left, right, up and down
alt + right mouse button drag: zoom camera in and out
Using the "Style" menu you can set some OpenGL properties of the 3D view:
backface culling: Turn on and off OpenGL backface culling. When turned on only polygons which
face the camera are drawn, whilst polygons facing away are not.
wireframe: Turn this on to draw the whole scene in wireframe.
antialiasing: Turn this on to activate line antialiasing, should your garphics card support it.
light both sides: Turn this on if both sides of all polygons should be lit, not just the ones that face
the camera.
When you click inside the 3D View, what happens depends largely on which tool is currently active - you can
see this by looking at the lower portion of the Property Editor. Mostly, you'll use the 3D View to position
objects (in which case, you would select an object from the Object Browser, choose the Transform tool, and
click and drag on one of the transform widgets on the Transform guide shown). However, if you're working
in Point, Edge or Polygon mode, you may also click in the 3D View to select parts of objects to edit.
You can also move the camera around by clicking and dragging. If you hold down the Alt key, the camera
will rotate around a central point.
Note
Since the 3D View is an OpenGL preview, some advanced features do not show up, such as complex material
properties. You must render a scene using the Renderer before these effects will be visible.
Properties Editor
Every document window of Cheetah3D has two property editors located at the upper right corner of the
window. The first (the upper one in the image) displays all properties of the currently selected material or
object. The second one (the lower one in the image) displays all properties of the current tool.
The entries in the properties editor which have a small triangle in front of them are expandable. Click on the
disclosure triangle and the entry will expand and display some further information that you can adjust.
The use of the controls in the property editor is just like every Mac OS X application, so you should find
these easy to use.
The object/tag/material properties editor

To display the properties of an object, tag or material, just select the appropriate object, tag or material in
the object or material browser. All properties of that object will be displayed. The entries in the object/tag/
material properties editor all make use of the undo/redo feature, meaning that you can quickly go back if
you have made a mistake. This will give you plenty of freedom to experiment without having to worry about
damaging your creations.
The tool properties editor
There can only be one tool active at any given time. The properties of the active tool are displayed in the tool
properties editor. Every time you choose a new tool this view will be updated to display the properties of
that tool. The entries in the tool properties editor are not undo- or redo-able.
Object Browser
The Object Browser is a hierarchical view of objects that make up your 3D scene.
When you start a new Cheetah3D document, there will be one Camera by default, since this camera shows
you what you currently see in the 3D View. As you add objects to your scene, you will see them appear in the
Object Browser, one per line. Each object will also carry one or more tags.
Sometimes you need to put objects "inside" other ones (conceptually, not physically). A simple form of this is
when you use a Folder to group objects together. Some Creator Objects however, need objects to be placed
inside of them before they will create any results. To do this, simply click on the desired child object, and
drag it ontop of the parent object. You can also change the order of objects by clicking and dragging them
to the right place.
Camera Object
Every scene needs at least one camera object. Without a camera object you can see only a grey background
in the 3D view. It is possible to put as many cameras as you want into the scene but only one camera can be
active at once. The active camera is the camera through which you look.
The icon of the active camera will be highlighted in the object browser, so that you can easily recognize
which camera is currently active. The active camera is the camera through which you look through when you
choose "Scene camera" in the tool bar of the 3D view.
Properties
field of view: Field of view of the camera. The bigger the field of view, the more of the scene you can
see.
clip near: The distance to the near clipping plane. Every primitive which is in front of the near
clipping plane will be removed by OpenGL.
clip far: The distance to the far clipping plane. Every primitive which is behind the far clipping plane
will be removed by OpenGL.
make active camera: Press this button if you want to make the currently selected camera the active
one. After clicking this button the icon of the selected camera should be highlighted. You can also
make the camera the active camera by double clicking onto the object icon in the object browser.
oversampling pass1: Oversampling rate for the first rendering pass. 1x results in no anti-aliasing,
whilst 64x gives very smooth results, but will take much longer to compute. An oversampling rate of
1x should be enough for most scenes. To improve image quality it is better in increase the
oversampling rate of the second pass because the second pass antialiases adaptively which is much
faster.
oversampling pass 2: Oversampling rate for the second rendering pass. The second rendering pass
just improves those areas of the image were a refinement is needed. See also the tolerance
parameter. If you need a higher image quality increase this parameter.
tolerance: Cheetah3D offers adaptive antialiasing. This mean that only those pixels are oversampled
which actually needs it, for example the edges of a object. With the tolerance property the sensitivity
of the adaptive antialiasing algorithm can be adjusted. The lower the value the exacter will be the
results. Normally a value of 0.05 should be OK. If you set the tolerance to zero no adaptive
antialiasing will happen and normal full oversampling will be used.
camera light: Every active camera has it's own camera light. That is the reason why even a scene
without a light source is illuminated. Disable this proberty if you don't need the camera light
anymore. For example when you've set up you own light sources manually.
filter size: The width of the filter kernel in pixels.
shadows: Use this property to turn on/off the shadow calculation for all light sources.
resolution width: Currently only used in the exporter to the .rib file format, and for the renderer. Use
it to set the width of the image to be rendered.
resolution height: Currently only used in the exporter to the .rib file format, and for the renderer.
Use it to set the height of the image to be rendered.

background color: Background color for the preview and rendering facilities. Setting this to a
transparent colour will result in an image with a properly rendered alpha channel.
Point Light
Every new Cheetah3D document already has one default light source: The camera light. The camera light is a point light with constant
attenuation at the position of the camera. This camera light will not appear in the object browser. The camera light should be sufficient for
most modelling jobs.
However, if you want to create your own lighting environment you have to use light objects. You can add as many light sources to your scene
as you want but only the first 8 lights in the scene will be used in the 3D preview. The renderer works with all light sources.
The point light object can be set up as either an ambient light or as a point light.
Properties
color: The color of the light source.

intensity: The intensity of the light source.
ambient: Add an ambient term to the light source using this property. If a light has an ambient term, the parts of an object facing
away from the light source will also be illuminated.
attenuation: The attenuation describes how fast the light intensity decreases. In nature, light intensity decreases proportionally to 1/
r^2 with r as the distance between the object and the light source. In computer graphics there are other attenuation functions that are
also widely used, however.
shadow type: Use this property to choose the shadow calculation type. See the images below to understand the various types. Don't
forget to also turn on the shadow property of the camera object, otherwise no shadows will be calculated.
none:
no shadows
shadow color: The color of the shadow.
raytrace:
The ball casts a shadow correctly, but not
the slide
raytrace+trans:
The slide now casts it's shadows correctly.
This is the most CPU intensive shadow
type, so only use it when necessary.
Objects and Tags
Objects
Objects that make up your scene are listed in the object browser. The name of each object (which, of course,
you can change) appears as the first item in each row, followed by a small icon (known as the Object Tag)
which represents what sort of object it is. There may be others following the initial Object Tag.
Tags
Tags are used to extend the properties of objects. You can add UV coordinates to an objects for example
with the UV Tag.
To add a tag to an object you just select the object in the object browser and then choose the desired tag
from the tag menu in the toolbar. The tag should appear on the rightmost side of the selected object. To
modify the properties of the tag, just click on the tag icon. The properties of the tag should then appear in
the property editor.
Folder Object
The only purpose of the folder object is to help you organizing your scene. For example, put all the
components of a car (the wheels, seats, body, etc.) into a folder and name it "car".
Every folder object has it's own transformation properties. You can therefore use the folder object to define
a sub coordinate system. That way, you can drive your whole car around using one single transformation.
Properties
none
Creator Objects
The Creator Objects are a family of special polygon objects. These objects are by themselves empty. You
first have to drop in the appropriate child objects (spline or polygon objects) to make them work. The
Creator Object then calculates a new object out of the information offered by its child objects (see the
example).
If you edit the children of a Creator Object the object will update themselves immediately.
Many Creator Objects also inherit information from the tags of it's children. For example, when you drag a
Polygonobject with a UVTag into a Subdivision object, the uv coordinates will be inherited by the Subdivision
object .
If you still want to edit a Creator Object on the polygon or point level you can make it editable like every
other parametric polygon object with the menu command "Objects Make editable". This will collapse the
Creator Object and all its children into a single editable object, so only do this if you do not need to make
changes to any of its child objects.
Example
This example illustrades how you can create a 3D font out of a Text spline with the help of the Extrude
Creator Object.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Create a Text spline from the tool bar.

Edit the Text spline properties like the Font or the text.
Create a Extrude object from the tool bar.
Drag and Drop the Text object into the Extrude object (see figure).
Select in the Extrude properties "front & back" for the parameter "cover".
You're finished! You can still edit all the properties of the Text spline to fine adjust the 3D font.
Scene in the object browser.
3D Font in the 3D view.
Transform Tool
Along with the Select Tool, the Transform Tool is one of the most often used tools of all. It contains three
tools in one. You can use it to move, scale and rotate around points, edges, polygons, objects and even tags.
The transform tool only acts on selections so you first have to select the objects, points etc. before you can
move them around.
To change between the different transformation types you have to click on the gadgets at the end of the
coordinate system axis. To use the move transformation, click on the cone. For rotational transformations,
click on the ball, and for scale transformation, click on the box. You can see which transformation type is
currently active, since the appropriate symbol (cone, ball or box) will be highlighted. See the pictures below
for a visual demonstration.
The gadgets at the end of the coordinate system axis can also be use to perform a move/scale/rotate which
is constrained in the direction of the chosen axis. To do this just click onto the gadget and drag the mouse
to the left or to the right.
The move and the scale operation can also be constrained. To do this you have to lock the move/scale in the
X, Y or Z direction using the appropriate icons in the tool bar.
Modes
The transform tool performs different operations depending on which mode Cheetah3D currently is in.
When in object mode you can move/scale/rotate around the whole object which is currently selected.
You can also do this numerically by entering the appropriate values in the properties editor.
When in polygon mode you can move/scale/rotate around the current polygon selection. It therefore
only makes sense when your current object is a raw polygon object. You can also select single
polygons by clicking on them.
When in edge mode you can move/scale/rotate around the current edge selection. It therefore only
makes sense when your current object is a raw polygon object. You can also select single edges by
clicking on them.
When in point mode you can move/scale/rotate around the current point selection of a raw polygon
object or of a spline object. You can also select single points by clicking on them.
Keys
shift + click: Extend the current point, edge or polygon selection without clearing the current
selection.
command + click: Unselect a selected point, edge or polygon.
shift + drag: Works only with spline objects. Use this to move around the tangents separately.
Attention: It doesn't work when you are in the rotate or scale mode.
command + drag: Works only with spline objects. Use this to open up a closed spline. Without this
trick it isn't possible to open up a closed spline because you usually select the beginning and ending
point together, and end up moving both around. When you use the command+drag trick, only the
beginning point will be moved. Attention: It doesn't work when you are in the rotate or scale mode.
Properties
coordinate system: With this property you can choose if you want to perform the move/scale/rotate
in the local coordinate system of the object or in the global coordinate system of the whole scene.
tweak mode: When this property is checked on you no longer have to select polygons, edges or
points before you can move them. You can simply drag them arround with the mouse. The tweak
mode only works on raw polygon objects.
snapping On/Off: Turn on and off snapping. Snapping can be used to position points or objects
exactly at the position of already existing objects or points.
snap space: When you choose local as your snap space, Cheetah3D only snaps to the snap targets of
the currently selected object. If you choose global as your snap space, Cheetah3D can snap to every
point or every object center in the whole scene. This operation could become quite expensive, so you
should only use it when necessary.
points: If this property is checked, snapping to points of polygon objects or splines is enabled.
object center: If this property is checked, snapping to object centers is enabled.
quantize On/Off: If you turn on the quantize property the move operation wont be continuous any
more, and only multiples of the move raster size will be possible. If you've set move to 0.1 for
example the x/y/z position of an object can then only have values like 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, ... and so on.
With a move value of 0.1, a value of 0.15 isn't possible since it isn't a multiple of 0.1. This is very
useful for construction purposes where points have to snap into a raster.
move: Sets the raster size of the quantize property.
Select Tool
The Select Tool is probably the most often used tool of all. You need it to select points, edges, polygons, or
entire objects. All selection operations are also available in the "Selection" menu.
Modes
The select tool performs different operations depending on which mode Cheetah3D currently is in.
When you are in object mode you can select either entire polygon objects or spline objects within the
3D view. You can only select one object at at time. Multiple object selections aren't supported yet.
When you are in polygon mode you can select polygons of raw polygon objects. You cannot select
polygons of parametric or creator objects. To do this you first have to make them editable (see
Polygonobject).
Within edge mode you can select polygon edges of raw polygon objects.
Within point mode you can either select the points of a raw polygon object or you can select the
control points of a spline.
Keys
shift: Use the shift key for extending an already existing selection.
command: Use the command key to unselect single polygons, edges or points of an already existing
selection.
Properties
visible: When this property is checked, only visible primitives will be selected. Hidden primitives can
be selected if this property is not checked.
radius: The selection radius in screen pixels around the mouse cursor within which primitives will be
selected.
transfer selection: Transfers the current selection into a point, edge or polygon selection. Doesn't
work in object mode.
select all: Selects all polygons, edges or points of the currently selected object. Doesn't work in
object mode.
select group: Increases the current selection to all polygons, edges or points which are connected to
each other. Two polygons are connected to each other if they have one common edge for example.
invert selection: Inverts the current selection. Doesn't work in object mode.
expand selection: Expands the current selection by the unselected neighbors of the selection.
reduce selection: Reduces the current selection by the primitives which have unselected neighbors.
Polygonobject
The Polygonobject is the father of every object in Cheetah3D which has a surface. To these objects belong
all the parametric polygon objects and all the creator objects. In the manual, the Polygonobject will be often
be called a raw Polygonobject, so that there is no confusion over which objects are derived from the
Polygonobject. A Polygonobject can be made out of triangles (three points), quads (four points) and ngons (n
points, where n is any natural number).
Caution! The Polygonobject is the only object where the mesh can be modified with the polygon tools. If you
want to modify the mesh of another object you first have to make it editable.
You can create a polygon object directly using the menu command "Objects Polygonobject Polygonobject".
This object is empty and doesn't contain any points or polygons. You can add points to this object with in
insert point tool and thereafter you can then mesh these points together with the create polygon or the
create polygon strip tool.
You could also create a parametric polygon object (Box, Ball, etc.) or a creator object (Boolean, Lathe, etc.) as
a starting point, but you won't be able to modify the mesh of these objects. If you want to modify the mesh
manually with the polygon tools you have to make the object editable. You can do this by selecting the
object and using the menu command "Objects Make editable". Now the parametric or creator object will
lose it's parametric properties and will be transformed into a raw Polygonobject which is editable.
It is also possible to make the parametric polygon object editable by double clicking onto the object icon in
the object browser.
Normals
Every polygon object has a property group called "Smooth". With these parameters you can control the
normal calculation algorithm.
smooth:
flat: The vertice normals of a polygon are just the normal of the polygon plain.
phong: The normal of every polygon corner is calculated by averaging the normals of all
polygons which share that point. Take care, since this algorithm can produce undesirable
artifacts (see below for a visual example).
constrained: Only the normals of those polygons which have a smaller angle between the two
plains created by the polygons will be averaged. This operation is much more expensive to
calculate than the unconstrained case, so take care to only use it when it is necessary.
smooth angle: Determines the angle for the constrained calculations. Try playing around with this
value and you will immediately understand the effect is has on your polygon objects.
Cylinder with unconstrained normals (left). Cylinder with phong normals (right).
Creases
Creases are sharp features in the context of subdivision surfaces. You can tag an edge of a mesh as a crease
in Cheetah3D by selecting that edge in the edge mode and then using the menu command "Selection Set
crease". An edge which was tagged as a crease will be displayed blue in edge mode (if it is not currently
selected). Use the command "Selection Reset crease" to untag a creased edge. If you now use the
subdivision command or the Subdivision object the tagged edge will be handled as a crease. See the images
below for an example of how creases affect the way a subdivision operates.
Multiple polygon selections

Every Polygonobject has 16 totally independent polygon selections. You can switch between these selections
with the polygon selection property in the properties browser.
These multiple polygon selections are normally used to assign more than one material to a mesh. You can
assign a brown material to polygon selection 1 and a grey material to polygon selection 2 (as in the example
above). See also the material tag for using multiple materials per mesh.
The polygon tools always use the current polygon selection. The polygon selections won't be destroyed by
using polygon tools normally.
Properties
polygon selection: The current polygon selection.

polygons: The number of triangles and quads in the mesh.
points: The number of points in the mesh.
Catmull- Clark Subdivide Tool

The subdivide tool performs a single Catmull-Clark subdivision process on a raw polygon object. It can be
used to smooth polygon objects and increase their detail. The subdivide tool retains all crease and polygon
selection (material) properties.
For more details about creases and multiple polygon selections, see the raw polygon object.
Modes
The subdivide tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's behavior in point, edge, polygon and
object mode is the same.
To perform a subdivide, you just select a raw polygon object from the object browser and use the
menu command "Tools Polygon Catmull-Clark subdivide". Now a Catmull-Clark subdivision process
will be performed on the entire mesh. Creases and multiple materials will be retained.
If you are in polygon mode and you've selected some polygons the subdivision will be only performed
on the selected polygons.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Tips
Use the Subdivision object to perform interactive subdivision modeling, or to use Stam-Loop
subdivision processing.
Subdivision Object
Attention: Version 2.0 added the Subdivision modifier object which is now the prefered
technic for using subdivision surfaces. But the Subdivision creator object will be maintained
for backward compatibility.
The subdivision object allows you to take a simple polygon object and smooth its surfaces by exponentially
increasing the number of polygons the shape is made from. It is functionally the same as the subdivide tool,
although the subdivision object is a creator object, meaning that you place it into your scene, and drop a
polygon objects inside it - this allows you to modify the original polygon object and see those changes
reflected in the subdivided result. In combination with the parametric polygonobjects, this gives you a lot of
freedom and power.
In the example above, you can see that the first box is a simple parametric polygon object. The second and
third items are subdivision objects, each containing the same box as in the first - note how the shape of the
box is smoothed by increasing the number of polygons. In the last subdivision object, the Iterations
property has been increased to 3.
Cheetah3D offers two different subdivision schemes which both supports creases. The first is the classic
Catmull-Clark subdivison scheme which most other 3D modelers support too. But the Catmull-Clark
subdivision scheme has a handicap. It performs very well on quads but if there are triangles in the mesh
artifacts can appear. The Stam-Loop scheme on the other side is an advanced subdivison scheme which uses
the best properties from the Catmull-Clark and the Loop subdivison scheme. It therefore behaves much
better on mixed meshes which include both quads and triangles. See the pictures below for a better
understanding.
The original mesh which consists of triangles and quads.
The left image uses the classic Catmull-Clark subdivision scheme the right the Stam-Loop scheme The
Catmull-Clark scheme creates ugly artifacts at the corner which is build up with triangles. The Stam-Loop
scheme on the other side looks as one would expect.
Attention: The subdivision object will produce objects with very many polygons, especially when the
Iterations property is increased. Take care not to overload your computer by increasing Iterations too high. 2
or 3 is often sufficient for good quality renders.
Tips:
When you use the subdivision object for modeling it could happen that points or polygons of the
control mesh are hidden by the subdivided mesh. It is then impossible to select these points. The
easiest way to select these points is to deactivate the subdivision object temporarily. This can be
done by unchecking the "create" property of the subdivision objects mode tag.
The deactivation of the subdivision object can be even performed by the " Create parent object On/
Off" hotkey. When you've defined this hotkey in the preferences window it is possible to deactivate
the parent object (in our case the subdivision object) when we are currently editing the control mesh.
The point of the control mesh in the upper right is hidden by the subdivision mesh. Deactivating the
subdivision object by
unchecking the "create" property of the subdivision objects mode tag makes the point accessible.
The isoparamter mode of the "editor shading" property of the mode tag is also available in the
subdivison object. This mode highlights the edges of the original control mesh.
Usage
To use the subdivision object you just drag and drop a polygon object into a subdivision object (as in the
example above).
Properties
interations: Determines how many times to subdivide the surface of the child polygon objects.
Defaults to 2.
scheme: Controls what sort of subdivision scheme is used. Catmull-Clark is the default, but you can
also use the Stam-Loop scheme.
Subdivision Modifier
The subdivision modifier allows you to take a simple polygon object and smooth its surfaces by
exponentially increasing the number of polygons the shape is made from. It is functionally the same as the
subdivide tool, although the subdivision object is a modifier object, meaning that you don't destroy the
original mesh - this allows you to modify the original polygon object and see those changes reflected in the
subdivided result. In combination with the parametric polygonobjects, this gives you a lot of freedom and
power.
In the example above, you can see that the first box is a simple parametric polygon object. The second and
third items are subdivided objects, each having the same box as it's control mesh - note how the shape of
the box is smoothed by increasing the number of polygons. In the last subdivision object, the Iterations
property has been increased to 3.
Cheetah3D offers two different subdivision schemes which both supports creases. The first is the classic
Catmull-Clark subdivison scheme which most other 3D modelers support too. But the Catmull-Clark
subdivision scheme has a handicap. It performs very well on quads but if there are triangles in the mesh
artifacts can appear. The Stam-Loop scheme on the other side is an advanced subdivison scheme which uses
the best properties from the Catmull-Clark and the Loop subdivison scheme. It therefore behaves much
better on mixed meshes which include both quads and triangles. See the pictures below for a better
understanding.
The original mesh which consists of triangles and quads.
The left image uses the classic Catmull-Clark subdivision scheme the right the Stam-Loop scheme The
Catmull-Clark scheme creates ugly artifacts at the corner which is build up with triangles. The Stam-Loop
scheme on the other side looks as one would expect.
Attention: The subdivision modifier will produce meshs with very many polygons, especially when the
Iterations property is increased. Take care not to overload your computer by increasing Iterations too high. 2
or 3 is often sufficient for good quality renders.
Tips:
When you use the subdivision modifier for modeling it could happen that points or polygons of the
control mesh are hidden by the subdivided mesh. It is then impossible to select these points. One way
to select these points is to deactivate the subdivision modifier temporarily. This can be done by
unchecking the "modifier" property of the original meshs mode tag.
There is also a hotkey ("Modifier On/Off") available to perform disabling the modifiers by a simple key
hit.
The point of the control mesh in the upper right is hidden by the subdivision mesh. Deactivating the
modifiers by
unchecking the "modifier" property of the meshs mode tag makes the point accessible.
For trimming a subdivision cage it is often enough to move just single polygons or edges. To do that
the tweak mode of the transform tool is highly recommended. It also avoids the problem of hidden
edges and points because even hidden edges and points will be highlighted once the mouse cursor is
above them.
The isoparamter mode of the "editor shading" property of the mode tag is also available in the
subdivison modifier. This mode highlights the edges of the original control mesh.
Properties
interations: Determines how many times to subdivide the surface of the child polygon objects.
Defaults to 2.
scheme: Controls what sort of subdivision scheme is used. Catmull-Clark is the default, but you can
also use the Stam-Loop or Linear scheme.
Mode Tag
With the mode tag you can modify various appearance settings of the object. Every object, excluding the
camera object, has a mode tag.
Properties
visible in editor: Determines if an object is visible in the 3D view or not. Caution! Some file filters
only export objects which are visible.
editor shading: You can determine if the object should appear shaded, as a wire frame, as
isoparameters or as a bounding box in the 3D view. If you want to see the whole scene in wire frame
you should use the option in the camera object.
create: Turn this option off if you don't want a particular creator object to update themselves. This
can be very useful when selecting hidden points in subdivision modelling (see also the Subdivision
object)
modifier: If the object is a polygon object all attached modifiers are turned on/off. If the mode tag is
attached to an modifier object just this particular modifier will be enabled or disabled.
visible in renderer: Determines if the object appears in the renderer. Note that both splines and
children of creator objects never appear in the renderer.
Modifier Objects
The Modifier Objects are a family of objects that don't have any geometry themselves. A little like the Creator objects,
their purpose is to modify the geometry of an existing object. However, they differ from them in that you drop them
inside a polygon object to make them work (instead of the other way around, like a creator object). The Modifier
Object then calculates a new object out of the information offered by its parent object. If you drop more than one
Modifier Object into object the modifiers will be processed one after another like on an assembly line. See the
example below for a demonstration of how to use modifier objects effectively.
A key factor of modifier objects are that they are none destructive, meaning that you can delete them and the original
geometry will be preserved.
UV Coords
Modifier objects always try to retain the UV coords of the parent object.
Tesselation
Because many modifier objects operate by moving the vertices of the parent polygon object, the results you get may
not be as exactly desired, usually because some edges might have been stretched too far. This problem can be easily
solved by increasing the tesselation of the object (with a subdivision step for example).
On the left image you can see a twisted box with 5 sections into the Y- direction. The result is quite blocky an
unnatural.
The box on the second image has 50 sections in the Y- direction. Now the result looks more natural.
Disabling Modifiers
Often, it can be convenient to disable a modifier temporarily. This can be easily done by unchecking the "modifier"
property of the mode tag. If you disable this property on the polygon object all of its modifiers will be disabled. If you
disable this property on a modifier object just this modifier will be disabled.
Attention: The more modifiers you add to a polygon object, the slower it's calculation will become. Take care when
choosing your object tesselation and always use the minimum amount of polygons that are necessary to get the
desired result.
Properties
Type: Specifies which vertices will be effected.
Constrained: All vertices are

modified. But the modification will
be constant outside of the cage.
Unconstrained: All vertices are

modified.
Cage: Specifies the size of the cage.
Example
We start with a simple polygonal

object.
Now we create a symmetry modifier

and drop it in the polygon object. The
mesh will now be mirrored.
Cage: Only the vertices within the

cage will be modified. This can
cause cracks at the borders of the
cage.
We do the same with a subdivision

modifier. The mesh will now be
smoothed.
Finally we attach a displacement

modifier which causes these bumps.
Note how the displacement occurred
after the subdivision and symmetry
modifications. If you wanted, the
original polygon mesh is still editable
if you select the object called "Box"
Symmetry Modifier
A lot of things in nature are symmetrical. Most creatures have two eyes, an equal number of legs, two arms,
two wings and so on. With the help of the symmetry modifier you only have to model one side of the
creature (assuming you're trying to model something real!). The second side will be automatically created
through mirroring the geometry. See the image below for an example. Only one eye, wing, foot and so on
was modelled. The counterpart was created through the symmetry modifier, saving considerable effort.
Properties
Attraction radius: Determines how close a point has to get to the symmetry plane until it won't be
mirrored. Points within the attraction radius will be used as weld points to the mirrored geometry.
Symmetry plane: Controls on what plane the geometry will be mirrored.
Symmetrical: Determines if the points which are in the radius of attraction are snapped to the
symmetry plane or not.
Weld points: Determine is the geometry should be welded together at the points which are in the
attraction radius.
Displacement Modifier
The displacement modifier moves vertices along their normal according to a height map. To get nice results
a lot of polygons are needed which is probably the biggest disadvantage of the displacement modifier.
On the images below you can see a simple example of displaced subdivision surfaces. This technique allows
you to model a head with the subdivision surface tools and add details like wrinkles to the head with a
displacement map.
Properties
Offset: Specifies the maximum offset.

Texture: The path to the height map. A height map is a simple grey scale image where white is
equivalent to maximum offset and black is equivalent to no offset.
Material Tag
The Material Tag will be created automatically when you drag and drop a material onto a polygon object in
the object browser. You cannot assign materials to other objects that aren't polygon objects. The icon of the
Material Tag will show a small preview of the used material. When you delete a material in the material
browser all Material Tags which reference the material will be deleted too.
Within the Material Tag the shading space will be determined and a final transformation to the UV
coordinates is possible before being sent to the renderer. This last transformation of the UV coordinates is
especially useful for parametric polygon objects when natural UV coordinates are used.
Multiple material per mesh
It is possible to allocate up to 16 different materials per mesh. Use the independent polygon selections of
the raw polygon object to constrain a material to a selection of polygons from the entire mesh. See Example
3 for a step by step explanation.
Attention: If you assign more than one material to one single polygon then the right most Material Tag in the
object browser will be used for shading that polygon. For example, if you have five Material Tags assigned to
one mesh, and in the last Material Tag shading selection is set to all then all polygons will use the material
of the last Material Tag.
Properties
shading space: Determines if the object will be shaded in world space or object space. See Example 1
for a visual example of the difference between these two shading spaces.
shading selection: Constrain the material to a polygon selection. Use the index of the polygon
selection you used in the Polygonobject.
offset: Translate the shading space by offset.
rotation: Rotate the shading space by rotation.
scale: Scale the shading space by scale.
UV offset: Gives the uv coordinate a final offset before being sent to the renderer.
UV rotation: Gives the uv coordinate a final rotation before being sent to the renderer.
UV scale: Gives the uv coordinate a final scale before being sent to the renderer.
Example 1
In this example you can see a rotated trunk with a wood material added. If you shade in world space the
wood material will be calculated as if the tree trunk is standing perpendicular to the earth. This behavior is
often not what was wanted. If we shade the trunk in object space the spading space will be rotated with the
trunk and we get the expected behavior.
The shading space could also be modified manually with the offset, rotation and scale properties.
world space object space

Example 2
In this example you can see a textured parametric cube. In the first picture the standard natural UV
coordinates are used. In the second case the uv coordinates are scaled by (2.0, 2.0) and rotated by 45.
natural UV coords (left) vs. transformed UV coords (right)

Example 3
This example will explain step by step how to assign a material to a polygon selection.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Create a ball object and make it editable.

Set the Polygonobject property polygon selection to 1.
Select some polygons.
Set back the Polygonobject property polygon selection to 0. We do this so that our selection is saved
in polygon selection 1.
5. Assign a blue material to the Polygonobject. The whole ball will be blue.
6. Click on the Material tag in the object browser. The properties of the material tag will appear.
7. Set the Material tag property shade selection to 1. Now the material will be constrained to polygon
selection 1 of our Polygonobject.
Modes
No 3D application can operate without modes. They determine which entity of an object you want to modify.
Let's take the select tool as an example. Every raw polygon object consists of points, edges and polygons.
But how should Cheetah3D now what you want to select. Do you want to select points, edges, polygons or
the entire object? You therefore have to choose the appropriate mode first. Choose point mode for selecting
points, edge mode for selecting edges and so on. The current mode will be displayed in the toolbar.
Attention: Many tools only work in some modes. The tools which aren't available in the current mode will be
disabled in the menu.
Point mode: Use this mode when you want to manipulate points of polygon objects or control points
and tangents of spline objects.
Edge mode: Use this mode when you want to manipulate the edges of polygon objects.
Polygon mode: Use this mode when you want to manipulate the constituant polygons of polygon
objects.
Object mode: Use this mode when you want to manipulate entire objects.
Renderer
Cheetah3D currently offers a raytracer for rendering which supprts radiosity and HDRI renderings. The
renderer is fully integrated into Cheetah3D and is multi-threaded so that you can use both of your CPUs if
you have a dual processor Mac.
Most parameters for the renderer are set in the Camera, Light and Material objects. New materials can be
added via Plug-Ins.
You can render your final scene in three different ways:
1. Use the menu command "Render Render"
2. Assign the "Render" command to a hot key in the preferences window and then use that hot key.
3. Use the render icon (the cow) in the tool bar.
Features
Cheetah3D's built-in renderer currently offers the following features:
Multi threaded: The renderer is multi-threaded and therefore supports both CPUs of dual processor
Macs.
Shaders via Plug-In: Every built-in shader is a Plug-In. Cheetah3D can be easily extended with new
shaders.
Procedural shaders: There are several shaders to choose from: Directional, marble, membrane,
velvet and wood.
Resolution: You can render scenes up to a size of 2048x2048. The resolution can be set in the
Camera object.
File export: You can save the resulting images in many common 2D image file formats like .tiff, .jpg, .
png, etc.
Supersampling: Cheetah3D currently uses supersampling up to 64x to reduce rendering artifacts.
Therefore the color of each pixel will be calculated from up to 64x samples.
Anisotropic texture filtering: Cheetah3D uses anisotropic texture filtering to filter color and bump
maps. This results in less artifacts when rendering textured objects which are smaller than the
original texture.
Ray traced transparencies: Use the transparency or refraction property to calculate transparent or
glassy objects. There is also support for calculating the fresnel term of transparent objects.
Ray traced reflections: In Cheetah3D there are two ways to calculate reflections. The first one uses
raytracing to precisely reproduce the reflections of objects in the scene - see the blue cube and the
wood floor in the image above for a visual example. However, you can also use environment maps to
produce fake reflections - see the information on environment maps below for more details.
Alpha channel support: You can easily create icons with a transparent background by setting the
background color to transparent in the Camera object.
1024 light sources: Cheetah3D currently supports 1024 light sources which should be quite enough
for most scenes.
Shadows: Cheetah3D currently supports ray traced shadows. To turn shadow calculation on you have
to turn on the shadow property in the Camera and in the Light object.
Bump mapping: In nature, most surfaces aren't entirely precise - subtle bumps, ripples or dents are
vital for making realistic looking models. To simulate a bumpy surface you can use bump maps,
which are grey scale images where black represents the lowest level of the bumps and white
represents the highest level of the bumps. See the following two images which show a bump map and
the final rendered result.
Environment mapping: Environment mapping is a trick to produce fake reflections. To use

environment mapping in Cheetah3D you need a cube map, which consists of 6 images that represent
the environment in all six surface directions of a cube: -x, -y, -z, +x, +y, +z.
Cheetah3D expects cube maps in the following format (see the sample cube map which comes with
Cheetah3D in the Examples folder):
All images must be the same size.
All images must be quadratic and the width (height) must be a power of two (2, 4, 8, 16, 32,
64, 128, etc.).
The filenames must end with -x, -y, -z, +x, +y, +z.
Environment mapping in combination with bump mapping.
HDRI Backgrounds: HDRI backgrounds can be used for creating ultra realistic reflections and
refraction or for Image Based Lightning. For a better understanding read the documentation of the
HDRI and the Radiosity tag. The big example image at the beginning of this site demonstrates the
quality of HDRI renderings.

Radiosity and Ambient Occlusion: Cheetah3D supports both of these algorithms. They can be used
to calculate the indirect illumination of a scene. Read the documentation of the Radiosity tag for a
better understanding.
HDRI Tag
HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) is the magic word when it comes to creating ultra realistic images. While
normal textures save their color values between (0.0, 0.0, 0.0) for black and (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) for white, an HDRI can
have much brighter values than (1.0, 1.0, 1.0). These values can go up to 100.000. For example, the sun is much
brighter than a white sheet of paper. Because an HDRI map catches this higher-range lighting information from
the environment it can be used to illuminate the scene. The HDRI background works like a spherical area light
source.
The HDRI tag extends the camera object with the ability to add an HDRI background to the scene. This HDRI
background can then be used by the renderer to sample reflections, refractions, ambient occlusion or radiosity
samples.
Attention: You can only add an HDRI tag to a camera object.
The quality of a HDRI rendering is highly dependent on the quality of the HDRI texture. A excellentd source for
affordable high end HDRI textures is www.realtexture.com . Cheetah3D comes with two small sample HDRI
textures from www.realtextures.com . You can find them in the examples folder.
Advantages of the HDRI Tag:
Illumination of the scene: The ambient occlusion or radiosity algorithms will sample the HDRI background
to estimate how much light arrives from the environment. Even without a real light source a scene can be
illuminated using an HDRI background alone.
Realistic reflections/refractions: The HDRI background can be used to create very realistic reflections or
refractions. Lets assume your material has a reflection intensity of 0.1. If you used a normal environment
texture (like a .jpg) you will get a value of (1.0, 1.0, 1.0) when the sun is sampled. Multiplied by 0.1 the
reflected sun ends up with a dark grey (0.1, 0.1, 0.1) in the reflection. But now lets use an HDRI as
background. The sun might be sampled as (100000.0, 100000.0, 100000.0) for example. Multiplied by 0.1
you get (10000.0, 10000.0, 10000.0). After clamping this ends up as a nice realistic white reflection (see
the head of the penguin on the image below)
Soft shadows: Because the HDRI can be seen as a big spherical area light the shadows created by it in
ambient occlusion or radiosity are always soft (see second image).
Background: You get the background of your scene for free!
This scene was rendered with an HDRI background and ambient occlusion.
Check out the realistic reflections and the soft shadows under the penguin's wings.
Another simple scene illuminated by a HDRI. Once again check out the nice bright
reflections and the realistic soft shadows.
Properties
.hdr image: The filename of the HDR image. You can only load HDRIs which come in the .hdr file format.
Type: Defines the mapping of the .hdr file. If your .hdr file was saved in the probe format for example you
have to select probe to get the right mapping. There are three widely used mappings available in
Cheetah3D.
Probe
Cross
Panorama
Power: A scale factor for the HDRI texture. Every color sampled from the HDRI will be multiplied by this
factor.
Clamp power: Pixels in the HDRI with a very high intensity (for example in the sun) can cause serious
artifacts in combination with ambient occlusion or radiosity renderings. The artifacts can be easily reduced
by clamping the high intensities. Don't set the clamp value to low however, or you will lose all the benefits
of using an HDRI.
Rotate background: Rotates the HDRI texture around the worls Y axis .Some HDRI textures look better in
certain directions so it is often desired that these parts of the texture appear in the background of the
rendering. With help of the rotate background property you can achieve this.
Background: The HDRI will also be used for the scene background. Take care when using this since it will
interacts with the fog tag, if you use one.
Radiosity Tag
The radiosity tag extends the camera object with the possibility to render your scene with indirect illumination
(radiosity). Cheetah3D also offers the faster ambient occlusion algorithm for fast IBL (Image Based Lighting)
renderings in combination with the HDRI tag.
The classical raytracing algorithm just calculates the direct illumination which comes from a light source. But in
reality a big contribution of our environment lighting comes from light scattered by other objects. For example the
sun light coming through a window just illuminates a small area of the floor/wall. The rest of the room and the
ceiling will be illuminated indirectly.
Rendering a scene with full indirect illumination is now as easy as adding a radiosity tag to your camera object. You
don't have to change anything else. You'll probably want to fine tune the properties of the radiosity tag because these
properties are highly dependent on the scene geometry and the light setup.
Attention: You can only add a radiosity tag to a camera object.
Properties
Type: There are two different types for calculating indirect diffuse illumination.
Ambient occlusion: This isn't actually a way to calculate indirect diffuse illumination. It just fakes it's
behavior. It doesn't calculate how much light is scattered from other objects to the current pixel, it just
calculates what percentage of the pixel is occluded by the scene. The main advantage of AO is that it is
much faster than the exact solution. It is also very well suited for creating fast and nice looking outdoor
HDRI renderings. See the images in the Samples property section.
Radiosity: If you chose Radiosity, Cheetah3D calculates the indirect diffuse illumination with a Quasi
Monte Carlo Path tracing algorithm. This algorithm also offers effects which can be seen in the real
world like color bleeding (see the ceiling of the box scenes below).
Intensity: Defines the intensity of the indirect illumination. The actual indirect illumination will be multiplied
by this factor. It can therefore be used to fine adjust the intensity of the indirect illumination.
Samples: The number of samples which will be used to evaluate the indirect illumination. If you use too few
samples the image will become quite cloudy and patchy. See the left images below for a demonstration. How
many samples are actually needed depends strongly on the scene and lighting complexity. For simple scenes,
200 samples can be more than enough while for complex scenes up to 10000 samples could be necessary.
samples=25
samples=400
Diffuse scatterings: Defines how many indirect diffuse scatterings will be considered. More scattering orders
will create more physically correct images but the rendering time will also increase dramatically. There are also
more samples necessary if you use higher scattering orders because the noise increases.
This parameter doesn't have any effect if you use ambient occlusion.
Without radiosity
diffuse scatterings=1
Specular scatterings: If you set specular scatterings to zero only the diffuse lightning components of the
surounding environment will be gathered. That is ok if there are no reflective or transparent objects in the
scene. But if you render a scene with some reflecting or transparent objects like the metal ring below you lose
some serious amount of lightning. To also gather this light increase the specualr scatterings value. For
reflective objects 1 is enough. For transparent objects values >1 might be necessary. But be careful. The
specualr scatterings have a serious impact on the rendering time.
This parameter doesn't have any effect if you use ambient occlusion.
specular scatterings=0
specular scatterings=1
error: Defines how exact the indirect illumination will be interpolated. The lower this number the more exacte
the final image will become. If you set this number lower than 0.05 the caching algorithm will be disabled,
which will cause a dramatic increase in rendering time. It is therefore not recommended to set this value lower
than 0.05. There are only some exceptions where disabling the cache is really desired.
rmin: The minimum distance between caching samples.

rmax: The maximum distance between caching samples.
Fog Tag
The fog tag extends the camera object with the ability to render fog in both the raytraycer and the OpenGL
preview. Adding fog to your scene is now as easy as adding a fog tag to your camera object.
Attention: You can only add a fog tag to a camera object.
The fog tags usage is not just limited to creating fog. You can also use it to render under water scenes (blue
fog color) or to darken out the back of a scene (black fog color) for night-time effects.
Black fog was used here to darken out the trees in the back.
Properties
color: The color of the fog.

type:
linear: The fog intensity increases linearly.
exp: The fog intensity increases exponentially.
exp^2: The fog intensity increases squared exponentially.

density: The higher the density, the foggier it will become.
start: Distance from the camera were the fog starts. So the atmosphere in the front of the scene can
be crystal clear while the back is foggy.
Hello World
In this initial tutorial, you will learn how to make a simple rotating earth animation. You therefore will see
how to create objects, materials and finally how to animate them. I hope you will enjoy it.
1. Add the eath
ball to the scene
Create a ball
object from the
menu "Objects
Polygonobject
Ball", or with
help of the tool
bar.
A ball should
appear in the 3D
view and in the
objects browser.
The newly
created ball is
already selected.
The properties
of the ball are
displayed within
the properties
editor.
2. Create the
material
Now we have to
create a material
for our ball. To
do that, click on
the "Material
drawer" icon
in the tool
bar.
A drawer on the
right side of the
main window
opens. Select
Material from
the "Add
material" pull
down button
which appears in
the drawer. Now
you have a new
material and the

properties of the
material are
already
displayed in the
properties editor.
3. Set up the
material
To add the
world map
texture to our
newly created
material click
onto the word
"texture" in the
properties of the
SuperMat. The
texture item will
now expand.
You can either
enter the path of
the texture
manually or you
can browse your
hard disk by
clicking the
"Browse" button.
Use the image
file that contains
the texture you
want to map
onto your world.
Notice that we
already get a
preview of our
material in the
material browser.
4. Assign the
material to the
earth
To add the new
material to our
ball object you
just have to
drag and drop
the material
from the
material browser
onto the ball in
the object
browser (Don't
drag and drop it
into the 3D
View!). Now the
world map
finally appears
on the ball in
the 3D view.
5. Open the
Timeline
Now it is time to
animate our
earth ball. To do
that first open
the "Animation"
window layout
by using the
"Window layout"
pull down
button in the
toolbar. You can
also use the
menu command
"Window>Layout>Animation".
An empty key
editor view
opens. You can
see a small ball
icon in the lower
left part of the
timeline which
indicates that
you are
currently
animation the
ball object. If
you want to
animate other
objects, tags or
materials just
select them in
the object or
material browser.
6. Record initial
position
In the next steps
we have to
define our
animation. We
want to keep the
current position
of the earth as
our starting
point. So we just
click on the
"Record" icon
in the timeline
controll panel.
Now a first key
appears in the
time line at time
0.0 .
7. Set up the
ending time
Now we have to
record the
endpoint of our
animation. We
therefore have
to change the
time first. To do
that move the
"Time marker"
to 1.0 by
dragging and
dropping it.
8. Define the
endposition of
the animation
Next we change
the rotation
property of the
earth ball by
setting it to
(360 ,0 , 0). That
will cause a full
360 rotation
arround the Y
axis 1 second.
9. Finally
record the
endpoint of the
animation
To record the
new rotation
property click
again on the
"Record" icon
of the timeline.
Now a new track
appears in the
key view and
you are done
with setting up
the animation.
You can now
already preview
the animation by
clicking onto the
"Play" icon
10. Render the animation

Now you just have to position the camera and you are done. To see how to position the
camera please check out the 3D View chapter of the Cheetah3D documentation.
Finally it's time to render the animation. But that is the easiest part. Just click onto the
icon in the toolbar and you are done. Rendering the animation
"Render Animation"
shouldn't take much longer than a few seconds for a 320x240 resolution.
Congratulations! You've just created your first 3D animation with Cheetah3D. Feel free to play around
with all the other properties of the objects, tags and materials, and learn how they work. You can find
the whole project in the examples folder which comes with Cheetah3D.
Key Editor
If you haven't read the documentation about the Timeline please read this sections first.
The main purpose of Key editor is to get a overview about the timing of an animation. You neither see the
actual values of the parameters nor the interpolation type between the values. But you can see which
parameters are changing at a certain time.
To open the Key editor click on the Timeline icon (the stop watch) in the tool bar. The Timeline will now
expand.
Now you should see the keys of the selected object, tag or material if you've already recorded an animation.
If you haven't recorded keys the view will be blank.
Only parameter tracks with more than one key appear in the Key Editor. This has the advantage that the Key
Editor won't be cluttered with tracks in which actually no animation takes place.
Key Editor Controls:
Now lets start with the two main parts of the Key editor as shown on the screenshot above.
1. The left side of the Key Editor shows the parameters which have been animated.
2. The right part of the Key Editor shows the keys. The keys can be easily selected, moved around or
deleted.
Timeline
The timeline is the main controll for creating animations in Cheetah3D. If you can handle your video
recorder you should be also able to handle the Cheetah3D animation controls. Especially since many icons
are the same as on your video recorder or DVD player.
With Cheetah3D you can animate almost all object, tag and material properties. Only some parameters can
be animated, like the output resolution of an animation. Animating the resolution of a movie wouldn't make
to much sense too.
Cheetah3D uses a technic called key framing to create animations. This means that you only record the
object properties at positions where things actually change. Once you've recorded the object, tag or material
properties a key will be created. With help of the keys you can see where you've recorded the properties.
Between the keys Cheetah3D will interpolate the object properties.
This technic allows to create a hole animation by just recording the starting end the end points of an object.
Timeline Controls:
Now lets start with the six main parts of the timeline as shown on the screenshot above.
1. The small icon block at the left of the timeline contains the most often used commands for creating a
animation. You can also find all these commands in the "Animation" menu.
Goto first frame of animation (beginning
of the animation interval bar).
Goto former frame.
Play OpenGL animation preview.
Record current object settings.
Goto next frame.

Goto last frame of animation (end of the
animation interval bar).
Drag this icon to scale the timeline ruler .
Drag this icon to move the timeline ruler
to the left or to the right.
2. This small handle shows the current animation time. Drag it to the left or to the right to change the
current animation time.
3. The animation interval bar shows you the beginning and the end of the animation. If you want to
change the interval in which the animation will be rendered just drag the beginning or the end of this
red bar to the left or to the right. In the sreenshot above the animation will be rendered in the interval
from 0.0 sec. to 1.0 sec.
4. The current animation frame.
5. The icon of the object, tag or material whose parameters will be animated/recorded.
6. The small triangles at the bottom of the timeline are the keys. A key visualizes the positions where
the properties of an object have been recorded. You can select, move and delete keys.
Usage
To create an animation please follow these steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
First select the object, tag or material you want to animate.

Set the current animation time to the time at which you want to record a key.
Set the values of the object, tag or material properties.
Click on the record icon to save the new key.
Continue with 2. until you've recorded the hole animation.
Example
Check out the Hello world tutorial to see how to create a simple animation which just contains two keys. The
starting and the ending position.
Axe
In this tutorial you will learn how to make a simple axe. It will also give you a first insight into polygon and
subdivision modelling.
If you haven't already, work through the first tutorial so that you're familiar with objects and tags.
1. Create a box as the starting

point
First we create a simple box object.
Set the width to 3.0, the length to
0.5, the Y sections to 2 and the X
sections to 5. After calling the menu
command "Objects Make editable",
the box will be transformed into a
raw polygon object which we can
modify with the polygon tools. The
mode will also be switched
automatically into polygon mode.
You should now have the following
object.
2. Give the axe the basic shape

Use the transform tool to bring the
mesh into the following shape.
3. Creating the hangle

To create the handle of the axe you
need to select the polygon through
which the handle should go and
inner extrude it.
To finish to upper part of the
handle, extrude the already selected
polygon a little bit. Now do the
same procedure for the lower part
of the handle.
4. Sharpen the axe

The axe still isn't sharp so we
should sharpen it by collapsing the
polygons at the ends. This can be
done by going to point mode and
using the weld tool.
5. Assigning materials
Our axe is starting to look like a real
axe! It is now time to colour it. First
we switch to polygon selection 1 in
the polygon object properties. Now
we select the polygons of the
handle. After that, we change to
polygon selection 2 of the polygon
object and select the polygons of
the iron part. This gives us two
distinct polygon selections which we
can come back to later, and also use
to assign different materials to.
Next, change back to the polygon
selection 0.
We're going to create the materials
for our axe now. A simple grey
material and brown material will be
sufficient. Attach both materials to
the axe by dragging them from the
material drawer onto the axe object,
and set the "shade selection"
property of the material tags. For
the brown material set it to 1, and
to 2 for the grey material. Our axe
should now have the right colors!
6. First try to smooth out the mesh

If we now apply the "Tools Polygon
Subdivide" command to our axe,
we won't get the results we were
expecting!
7. Adding sharp features

We first have to set the creases.
Creases are sharp features in the
context of subdivision surfaces. To
set an edge as a crease, select the
edge in edge mode, and then apply
the command "Selection Set
crease". Edges which are tagged as
crease will appear blue in edge
mode. Note that currently selected
edges won't show up as blue, since
the selection highlight makes them
red.
8. Second try to smooth out the

mesh
If you now apply the "Tools
Polygons Subdivide" command,
you'll get the expected result. You
could also use the subdivision
object if you want to adjust the
mesh later.
9. Finished
You can find the axe in the Examples folder which comes with Cheetah3D.
Inner Extrude Tool

The inner extrude tool is an excellent tool to increase the detail of a mesh, as you can see on the pictures
below. It creates new edges around the selected properties.
Modes
The inner extrude tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects.
To perform an inner extrude onto a point selection, just click in the 3D view. You can now adjust the
inner extrude by dragging the mouse to the left or right. Release the mouse button to complete the
operation.
Take care, since under some circumstances it can be possible that overlapping polygons will be
created.
Inner point extrude before and after the operation.
Similar to usage in point mode.
Inner edge extrude before and after the operation.
Similar to usage in point mode.
Inner polygon extrude before and after the operation.

Keys
none
Properties
offset: Set a value bigger than zero when you want to quantize the offset.
preserve group: When this property is not checked, every selected polygon will be inner extruded
and not the whole group together. This property only works in the polygon mode.
perserve group switched off
Extrude Tool
The extrude tool is one of the most basic polygon tools available. It is very useful if you want to increase the
detail of a polygon mesh. See the pictures below to understand want the extrude tool does.
A similar effect can be obtained with the combination of the cover tool and the transform tool. The cover
tool even allows to extrude edges and is in many situations more comfortable than the extrude tool.
Extruding a polygon selection with and without preserving the group.

Modes
The extrude tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in polygon mode.
Keys
To use the extrude tool, select some polygons of a raw polygon object. Then choose the extrude tool
and drag the mouse in the 3D view either to the left or right, depending on whether you want to
perform a negative or a positive extrude. Once you are finished release the mouse button.
none
Properties
preserve group: If this property is checked, the extrude tool tries to preserve the grouping of the
polygon selection. It therefore calculates the angle between the neighboring polygons which are also
selected. If the angle between the polygons is smaller than the angle property of the extrude tool, the
group of these polygons will be preserved.
angle: See preserve group.
quantize: Set this property to 0 if you want to extrude continuously, otherwise this value determines
the distance you want to quantize the extrude to.
Cover Tool
The cover tool is almost the same as the extrude tool, except the cover tool is a headless tool which means
it doesn't need extra interaction from the user. When you bind the cover tool to a hotkey (in the preferences
window), you can extrude or inner extrude with the transform tool without changing the tool by simply
performing the cover tool before you move or scale the polygon selection.
Modes
The cover tool can only be applied on raw polygon objects. It's only available in polygon and edge mode.
To use the cover tool, select some polygons of a raw polygon object. Then call the menu command
"Tools Polygon Cover". If you move the polygon selection, you will see that new polygons around
the borders of the polygon selection were created.
The cover tool can be also used to extend a polygon object at its boarders. To do so select some
boarder edges (edges which don't have an neighbor). Then apply the cover tool by calling the menu
command "Tools Polygon Cover". If you move the edge selection with the transform tool, you will
see that new polygons along the edge selection were created.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Weld Tool
The weld tool can be used either to weld two points together, or to collapse an edge.
Modes
The weld tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in point, edge and polygon
mode.
To use the weld tool, click on one point of a raw polygon object. The selected point will now become
blue (as in the first image). Then click on the second point you want to weld. The two points should
be welded together (as in the second image).
If you weld two points of a polygon with n edges, a polygon with (n-1) edges will be created. If you
weld two points of a triangle the entire triangle will be deleted.
Keys
ESC: Use the ESC key to reset the tool.
Properties
to: If you select "middle" then the new common welded point will be positioned in the middle of the
two original points. If you chose "first point" then the new point will be at the position of the first
point you clicked on.
Champagne Flute
We're going to make a classy champagne flute and render it nicely. It wont contain any champagne, though. Perhaps
we'll do that later when we have a chance to celebrate.
1. Making the bowl
We shall start by making the flute's
bowl - the part that holds the
liquid. This bit will be made from a
hollow tube (not a cylinder!) that
will hover in the air for now (we'll
make the stem later). Set up the
properties as follows:
Sections longitudinal = 12
Sections height = 3
Inner radius = 1.9
Outer radius = 2.0
Height = 10
Y Position = 10
When that's done, make the tube

editable (Objects Make editable)
so that we can adjust the tubes
edges and points. When you do
this, you won't be able to set the
tubes properties any more, so
make sure you've got the settings
you want before doing this.
2. Closing the bowl

Next, we use the Loop selection
tool in Edge Mode to select the
inner loop of the bottom of the
tube (right, top). Then convert the
selection to points
(Selection Convert selection
to Points).
By using the Set Value tool
(Tools Set Value), set the
coordinates of all the selected
points to:
Coordinate system = Object

Value X = 0
Value Y = -5
Value Z = 0
Remember to click the OK button!
3. Shaping the bowl

We're now going to give the bowl
it's characteristic shape. In Edge
Mode, the Loop selection to select
the outer loop of the bottom edge
of the tube. Then use the
Transform Tool in scale mode (click
on the square gadgets) to scale the
outer edge loop to be about 1/3rd
the radius of the rest of the tube.
We need to do the same to the next

loop up, but the tricky part is that
we need to do it to both the outer
and inner loops. Once you've used
the Loop select tool to select the
outer loop, move the camera so
you can see the inner loop, and
whilst holding shift, click on the
inner loop once. Both inner and
outer loop should be selected (left
image).
Use the Transform tool in scale
mode, as before, to shape the bowl
into a nice subtle curve (right
image).
4. Finishing off the bowl with a
subdivision
Create a subdivision creator object
and drop the tube polygon object
into it. Set the iterations to 2 and
give the subdivision object a
smooth tag so that it looks nice.
You may notice that there is a hole
in the bottom of the bowl. This is
because the points that were all set
to the same coordinate in stage 2
are not actually welded together.
This isn't really a problem for us,
though. You'll see why in a moment.
Our champagne flute is not far
from being finished. We still need
to create the stem and foot, the
materials, and set up the scene for
final rendering though, so dont
break out the bubbly yet!
5. Creating and shaping the stem

Create a cylinder object and set the
properties as follows:
Y Position = 2.6
Sections longitudinal = 10
Sections height = 3
Radius = 0.4
Height = 5.1
Make the cylinder editable

(Objects Make Editable), as in the
first image.
In Edge Mode, use the Loop
selection tool again to select the
lower-middle loop of the stem
(second image).
Use the Transform tool to move it
downwards, closer to the bottom of
the stem (third image).
Then scale the loop so that the
stem goes thin before it gets to the
bottom (fourth image).
Finally, scale the upper-middle
loop of the stem in a similar
manner. The shape of the entire
stem is starting to make sense
(fifth image).
6. Adding creases to the stem
We're going to use the subdivision
creator object again on the stem,
but so that the top and bottom of
the stem don't get become
rounded, we need to make them
creased. Unfortunately, the top of
our stem is inside the bowl of the
flute, making it difficult to select.
By unticking the Visible in Editor
property in the bowl's Mode Tag,
we can temporarilly hide the bowl
so that we can select the top most
loop of the stem using the Loop
select tool.
Set this top loop as a crease

(Selection Set crease). You can
now make the bowl visible again
since we dont need to change
anything else on that top most loop.
We need to do the same with the

bottom of the stem, and at the
same time use the Transform tool
in scale mode to form the foot of
the flute. Typically the foot should
be about the same radius as the
bowl, but you may want to adjust
this later for a more pleasing result.
You may notice that the base of a

glass' foot is never flat (it curves
upwards a little), so select the
bottom central point (in Point
mode) and lift it up slightly. Don't
go too far, otherwise it'll pass
through the upper surface of the
foot, and that wouldn't make sense.
7. Subdividing the stem

Finally we're ready to drop the stem
polygon object into a subdivision
creator object, and give it a smooth
tag, too.
You can give your flute's shape
some last tweaks if it's not quite
right, since the Subdivision creator
objects do not destroy the original
polygon objects. This is one of the
most powerful features available in
Cheetah3D, so get used to taking
advantage of it's capabilities!
8. Setting up the materials

We're now going to create the
materials for our flute. We'll need
two glass-like materials, both
based on the "Material" material.
One will be light blue (for the
bowl), one will be clear (for the
stem and foot). The vital properties
to change are:
Reflection colour = (a lighter

tint of the material colour)
Reflection intensity = 1.0
Transparency intensity =
approx 0.8
Transparency index of
refraction = 1.2
Fresnel = (ticked)
Some variation in these values

shouldn't matter too much.
9. Set up your scene and add a

light off to one side, making sure
you set the properties properly:
Intensity = 10
Attenuation = 1/r
Ambient = approx 0.5
Shadow type = raytrace
(important!)
Since champagne flutes doesn't

usually float in space, create some
scenery around it. In the example
file, it is simply a large, plain
cylinder with the normals flipped
(Tools Polygon Flip normal) so
that it faces inwards, instead of
out. The scenery gives the glass
something to reflect, and helps the
light bounce around producing
pleasing effects.
Take some time to lay out your
scene pleasingly, and then set the
scene rendering.
Be patient, since reflections and transparency take some time to compute. The render below took about 10 seconds to
render on a Dual G5 2.0 GHz using Cheetah3D 1.8. As a final touch, the render was given a very soft shine in
Photoshop by gaussian blurring a copy of the image, and laying it over the original using the overlay ink. This boosts
the colours and makes the light refractions shine a bit.
And there's your champagne flute.

Bottoms Up!
Hints and Tips

Here we'll give you some quick hints and tips which will make your use of Cheetah3D quicker, more efficient
and easier.
Use the hotkeys

Take some time to define suitable hotkeys for your most commonly used actions. This will make your
use of Cheetah3D much quicker since you'll be using the keyboard a lot. This will reduce the amount
of time you'll spend looking through the menus, and means less moving the mouse around, too.
Use the modifier keys for moving the camera
When you hold down the Alt, Command and Shift keys whilst clicking and dragging in the 3D view,
you can move the camera around. This is often quicker than using the camera movement icons below
the toolbar.
Name everything!
Take some time to change the name of every object in your scene to something logical. This will help
you keep track of what you need to edit.
Use folders
Put objects that are related into a folder to simplify arrangements. Folders are also useful for making
groups of objects stay together when you transform them. You can make complex subcoordinate
systems by nesting folders of objects inside other folders of objects, too.
Making items editable
Double-click on the object icon in the Object Browser to make objects editable. You can also use the
Alt-Cmd-C key combination.
Use multiple cameras
If the position of a camera is important in the composition of a scene, use a second camera to help
you position objects. You can switch between cameras quickly by double-clicking on the desired
camera's icon in the Object Browser. The currently active camera has a light blue background.
File formats
To save your render in a format other than TIFF, just type the extension after your filename when you
specify where to save the file (for example, "My Amazing Scene.jpg"). Most common formats are
supported: JPG, TIFF, PNG, and even the Mac OS X Icon .icns format!
When you've mastered Cheetah3D's controls and tools, you'll may be interested in making more realistic or
aesthetic scenes. Here are a few general tips that might help you make more pleasing renders.
Lighting
A scene will be set alive by proper use of lighting. It's easy to forget about your light sources, or to
add them in last thing and not pay much attention to them. Think about how the lights would be
positioned, if they'd be highly directional, and the other characteristics of the light sources, such as
their attenuation (realistic light always attenuates!). Also, use more than one light. Cheetah3D can
render up to 1024 light sources (although OpenGL cannot), so don't be afraid to be precise.
Shadows
Again, shadows are an integral part of nature. As humans, we instinctively want to live in the shade it reminds us of shelter. Unless you want that "bright studio look", shadows must be used and
considered carefully. What you don't see is as important as what you do.
PS. Even the "bright studio look" relies on shadows to visually balance a scene.
Reflections (the optic kind)
A lot of surfaces in reality reflect, even if it's imperceptible. Don't over-do it though, since Cheetah3D
cannot simulate complex diffusive reflections without intensive use of bump mapping. Careful use of
the reflection properties will give you a lot of realism.
Reflections (the mental kind)
If you're modelling a real object, take a good long look at the actual thing (from all sides, including
underneath if you can!) and spend time getting used to it. Understand what the details, imperfections
and perfections are. Ask yourself "what colours am I actually seeing?" (regardless of what colour the
object is supposed to be). Why would they be different? What colour is the light that is shining on it?
It's unlikely to be pure white!
Less is more
Often, a scene doesn't need to be physically full in order to be pleasing. Instead of trying to model
every last detail (which will drive you insane!), concentrate on the important parts, and make them
detailed. Subtlety will also help, since it is the liminal ("barely visible") variations that we hardly notice
that will make us appreciate something subconsciously. Use texture and bump maps to introduce
slight variations (not bold statements).
Pick up a real camera
You might learn a lot from Photography tutorials, since photographers treat their work as an artform
rather than a science. Considerations such as composition, psychological focus and avoiding visual
distractions are important and good photographers understand these before they even get their
camera out. Even though you're simulating a scene instead of capturing one, finding out what makes
a good photograph will help you produce stunning results. Cheetah3D gives you a lot of power that
even professional photographers don't have: A very widely flexible field of view, an infinitely
positionable camera, a multitude of lights that can be put anywhere - Photographers would love to
have this power over their expensive equipment! You can find some invaluable photography tutorials
online at http://www.photo.net/
Most importantly, however - have fun. Creating 3D scenes can be very rewarding - Happy rendering!
Window Layout Manager

This section explains who the window layout of Cheetah3D can be easily modified to meet your needs. You
can set up a window layout for modelling and one for animation for example.
Switching between different window layouts can be done either with the "window layout" pull down button in
the toolbar or with the "Window->Layout->..." menu command.
To build a custom layout we first chose the "Custom Layout 1" window layout from the "window layout" pull
down button in the toolbar. A big 3D view should appear.
Now make a "ctrl + click" into the titlebar of the 3D view. A context menu opens which offers the possibility
to split the view horizontally or vertically. We chose vertically in this example.
After performing the "Split vertical" command the 3D view will be split into two 3D views. Now it's time to
change the view type. Make once again a "ctrl + click" into the titlebar of the right 3D view. But now we
chose the "Object Browser" menu item.
Now the right 3D view has been changed into a "Object browser" view. You can now split the newly created
"Object browser" view again and so on.
Once you are done you have to use the "Save Layout" command from the "window layout" pull down button
to save your new layout.
Making Mac OS X icons

(version 1.6 or higher)
This tutorial will show you how you can conveniently create 3D icons for Mac OS X. Cheetah3D 1.6 and
upwards can save directly into the .icns file format.
This tutorial won't concentrate on modeling the object but more on the steps you have to do to render and
finally save the icon.
1. Making
the object
We shall
start by
making the
scene because this
tutorial
focuses on
making icons
we start with
a already
existing
scene. We'll
use the
Apple.jas file
from the
examples
folder which
comes with
Cheetah3D.
Open this
file by
double
clicking on
the icon or
using the
"File Open"
menu
command.
You should
now see the
following
apple in the
3D view.
We'll use that
apple for our
icon.
2. Setting
up the
camera
Next, we set
up the
camera
object to
render an
icon. See the
image on the
right for a
setup which
works quite
well.
Setting the
output
resolution to
400x400 is
no problem
because
Cheetah3D
scales the
icon
automatically
to 128x128
pixels later.
But it is
more
convenient
to have a
bigger
preview of
the icon
during it's
creation.
The opacity
of the
background
color will be
set to 0
because we
want to have
a nice
transparent
background.
3.
Rendering
the icon
After you've
positioned
the camera
with the
camera
controls you
can click on
the render
icon (the
cow) in the
tool bar to
render the
apple.
The output
of the
renderer
should look
like the
image on the
right.
4. Saving
the Mac OS
X icon
Our high
resolution
Mac OS X
icon is now
almost
finished. All
we have to
do now is to
save it to
the .icns file
format. Do
this by
clicking on
the "Save"
tool bar item
of the
"Render
Manager" or
by using the
menu
command
"Save".
Now enter
the name of
the icon with
the ending ".
icns", such
as "MyIcon.
icns" and
press the
save button.
The
rendered
image will
now be
saved as a
Mac OS X
icon.
5. Finished
You can now
check out
your newly
created 3D
icon in the
Finder.
Now feel free to make your own icons - have fun!
Soccer Ball
In this tutoruial we're going to make a classic soccer ball. This is actually quite simple and will only take a
few minutes, despite it's apparent complexity.
1. Create a Polyhedra
We kick off by making a polyhedra object.
We can use the standard settings of a
truncated Icosahedron. Now make the
polyhedra object editable so that we can
modify with our ball on the polygon level.
Your scene should look like this.
2. Making the color selections

Now we have to colorize the different
fields of our ball. Polygons with 5 corners
(pentagons) will become black. Polygons
with 6 corners (hexagons) will become
white.
First set the "polygon selection" property
of the polygon object to one. Then select
all the pentagons. Now set "polygon
selection=2" and select all hexagons.
Finally set the "polygon selection"
property back to zero.
3. Adding the materials

Now create two materials, a black one and
a white one. Attach these materials to our
ball. To restrict the black material to the
pentagons set the "shade selection"
property of the black material tag to 1.
Now do the same to restrict the white
material to the hexagons by setting the
"shade selection" property of the white
material tag to 2.
Our ball is starting to look like a real
soccer ball. Unfortunately it still won't roll
very far!
4. Making it a perfect sphere

To make a perfect sphere we first have to
increase the tesselation of our angular
ball. This can be done by attaching a
Subdivison modifier. Note that the
modifier object goes "inside" the
Polyhedra object in the object view - this
differs to how Creator objects work. Now
the ball looks much better but it is not
quite a perfect sphere. Attaching a
Spherify modifier finally makes a real ball.
5. Adding seams
Now it is time to make the seams. This is
the most awkward part of the tutorial, but
don't worry! If you've defined the extrude
and the select tool to a hot key this job
can be done in minutes.
First make your ball editable again. Then
select each field (segment of material) of
the soccer ball and extrude it a little bit. It
is enough to simply click in the 3D view
because the extrude tool moves the
polygon selection automatically a small
distance when you click. This small
distance is enough for our soccer ball.
You might also want to work with the
"quantize" property of the extrude tool for
a more accurate extrude.
6. Finishing the soccer ball

After extruding every field of the soccer
ball you should end up with something
like this. It still doesn't look quite like a
real soccer ball though.
You might already expect the finishing
touch. To finish your ball you just have to
attach a subdivision modifier to the
polygon object. Now all edges will be
smoothed out. And here it is, your first
self made soccer ball.
Game over!
You can find the finished soccer ball in
the examples folder.
Now it is your turn. Using the same technique, you can produce many types of
balls. To create a volleyball for example you would start with a box instead of
the truncated icosahedron.
Polyhedra Object
You can create various types of polyhedra with the polyhedra parametric object, including truncated and
normal polyhedra. The truncated icosahedron (see below) can be used as a starting point for a soccer ball
for example, or your own R. Buckminster Fuller-inspired architectural designs.
Truncated Icosahedron
Properties
Radius: Enter the radius of the polyhedra here.

Type: Choose the type of polyhedra here. You can choose between truncated and normal tetra-,
octa-, icosa- and dodecahedrons.
Spherify Modifier
The spherify modifier is a very powerful tool if you want to create any kind of balls (soccer, volley, etc.). See
the soccerball tutorial for a practical usage of the spherify modifier.
Properties
Cage: See the description of the modifier object.

Radius: The size of the final ball .
Strength: Specifies how much the object will be transformed into a sphere.
HDRI Rendering
This tutorial focuses on rendering a photorealistic scene. To do so, we use the radiosity tag and the HDRI
tag. With help of these two tags it is possible to use an technique called Image Based Lighting, or IBL. When
you render a scene with IBL, the scene won't be light by normal light sources such as a point light, but rather
by a special background texture. These High Dynamic Range Images store light levels beyond what a normal
texture map can, and so are suitable for simulating realistic environments, such as a very bright sun shining
in the sky. These textures end with ".hdr". Normal textures like .jpg don't work because they don't contain
the proper lighting information.
The quality of a HDRI rendering is highly dependent on the quality of the HDRI texture. A excellentd source
for affordable high end HDRI textures is www.realtexture.com . Cheetah3D comes with two small sample
HDRI textures from www.realtextures.com . You can find them in the examples folder.
As you can see below, two different .hdr textures can create two totally different lighting environments.
1. Load in the scene

We'll first load in an existing
scene because we're only
going to concentrate on
rendering in this tutorial.
Our sample scene is this
piggy bank on a wooden
plynth. If we render the
scene, we get a neat pink
pig as expected, but he
doesn't look too realistic
just yet.
2. Adding the HDRI

background
Now we add the HDRI
background to our scene.
This can be done by adding
an HDRI tag to our active
camera. The properties of
the HDRI tag should show
up automatically after
you've added the tag to the
camera object.
Now load in the HDRI
texture
"oldtown_pano_small.hdr"
which comes with
Cheetah3D. As the name of
the texture already implies,
was it saved in the
panorama format so you
also have to set the type
property to "panorama". The
other properties can stay
unchanged for the time
being.
If you render the scene now,
the .hdr texture appears in
the background of our
scene.
3. Using the HDRI texture

to illuminate the scene
Now it is time to tell
Cheetah3D to use the HDRI
background to illuminate
the scene. First of all we'll
disable the camera light
property of the camera
object. After doing that we
can add the radiosity tag to
our camera object.
The properties of the
radiosity tag should show
up now. This time we'll use
ambient occlusion (set type
to AMBIENT) because that'll
be sufficient for our

purposes, and it is much
faster than the full radiosity
algorithm.
If you now press the render
button you will get your
first image illuminated by
the .hdr texture. As you can
see the pig will be
illuminated very softly by
this HDRI texture. We also
get soft shadows on the
ground for free.
The surface of the pig looks
a little bit cloudy but this
can be improved by setting
the samples property to
800 and the error property
to 0.10. Note that
increasing the radiosity
quality isn't necessary in
this example as will be seen
in the next step.
4. Adding reflections
In our last step we set the
reflection intensity of the
pink material to 0.1. After
another rendering we see
these nice bright reflections
from our HDRI texture
which gives HDRI
renderings their very
realistic appearance.
The slightly cloudiness
found in step 3 has also
disappeared thanks to the
reflections.
5. Last finish
In the last step, just add a
point light to the scene with
a small ambient term, such
as 0.1. This helps to make
the scene a little bit brighter
and livens up our little
piggy.
Now it is your turn! Play around with the various properties to get a better
understanding of how they work. For example, you could increase the power
property of the HDRI tag to make the scene brighter, or just try different HDRI
textures. You can also add some classical light sources to illuminate dark areas.
Adobe Illustrator to Cheetah3D

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use your 2D vector artwork done with Adobe Illustrator in Cheetah3D.
But you can also use any other 2D vector drawing application which supports the SVG file format.
Attention: This tutorial assumes that you are a experienced Illustrator user. So it only explains the necessary
step which have to be done to export 2D drawings which can be imported and further processed by
Cheetah3D.
1. Create your artwork
in Adobe Illustrator
Let's start with a easy
Logo in Illustrator. We
make a paw and add
some text to it. We also
add some stars.
But you can also use
some other artwork from
your portfolio of course.
2. Make compound paths

Next we create three
groups of paths. One
group contains the starts,
one the paw and one the
text.
Lets start with the paw
group. Select all five
paths which build up the
paw (see image). Than
call the "Make Compound
Path" command from the
context menu.
Process the same steps
with the other two groups.
Please also use the "Make
Compound Path"
command if the group
just consist of one object
since that command
guarantees that
primitives like circles,

rects or text are actually
transformed into paths.
This is necessary because
the SVG file loader in
Cheetah3D only reads
path informations.
3. Export to SVG
Now we are almost done
with Illustrator. We only
have to export out 2D
vector drawings into a
SVG file.
To do that use the "Save
As" command from the
File menu. In the opening
save panel choose the
"SVG (svg)" export. After
clicking OK the "SVG
Options" window opens.
Please use the settings as
seen on the screenshot
on the right. Click once
again on the OK button
and you are done. You've
created a SVG file which
can be read by
Cheetah3D.
4. Load the SVG file into

Cheetah3D
Now launch Cheetah3D
and open the SVG file
with the "File->Open..."
menu command.
The paths you've created
with Illustrator should
now appear in the 3D
view and in the object
browser.
If the paths you've
created are very big it is
possible that you have to

zoom back the camera to
see them.
5. Going from 2D to 3D
Finally it is time to create
our 3D logo. We therefore
use the Extrude object.
You can create a Extrude
object either with the
menu command "Objects>Creator->Extrude" or
with the toolbar.
Since our logo contains 3
paths we need 3 Extrude
objects. So please create
them and drag and drop
into each Extrude object
one path.
But the result is probably
a little bit different than
what you expected. Both
the stars and the paw
appeared wrong. The
problem is that
Cheetah3D requires a
consistent winding rule
within a path or spline
object. All outer contours
should be clockwise and
all holes should be
counter clockwise.
But that problem can be
easily solved with the
next step.
6. Making the winding

rule consistent
Let's start with the paw.
Four parts of the paw
appear dark. That shows
you that the winding was
wrong. You can also see
on the color of the paths
that the contour is
counter clockwise (yellow
to red). So we just have to
change the winding of
that four paths. To do
that go into point mode.
Next select from every
path which appears black
at least one point. Make
sure that you didn't have
selected a point of the
leftmost path which
doesn't appear black.
Finally call the "Tools>Spline->Reverse
Sequence" menu
command.
Now all outer contours
have the same clockwise
winding and the paw
finally appears correct.
Now perform the same
steps on the stars object.
7. Doing some fine

tuning
We are already finished.
Now you can improve the
visual appearance of the
logo by beveling the
edges of the logo for
example. To do that set
the beveling properties of
the Extrude objects to the
values seen on the right
of.
After applying some materials which was explained in an earlier tutorial you are done.
Extrude Object
The extrude object offers a quick and versatile way of transforming a spline into a solid polygon object, as in
the images below.
Usage
To use the extrude creator object, you just have to drag and drop a spline object into a single extrude
object, then determine how large you want the extrude by changing the X-direction, Y-direction and Zdirection parameters. You can then optionally set some additional parameters which determines how the
extrude operation will operate, such as specifying a cover. For some splines that do not have a clockwise
winding, you may need to chose to Flip Normals, since the extruded polygons will be facing inwards instead
of outwards (which may or may not be what you intended).
Making 3D text is very easy with the Extrude object. Simply create a Text object with the text you'd like,
create an Extrude Object, and drop the text object inside of it. Instantly, you'll get 3D text.
Properties
sections: Determines how many subsections to use when creating the extruded polygons.
X-direction: The X offset amount by which the spline should be extruded.
Y-direction: The Y offset amount by which the spline should be extruded.
Z-direction: The Z offset amount by which the spline should be extruded.
flip normals: When off (by default), clockwise-winding splines result in the extruded polygons to be
outward-facing. Tick this to flip the normals so that they face inwards instead.
cover: Determines if the extruded spline will be hollow, or will incorporate a covered front, back, or
both.
radius: The radius of the bevel.
miter limit: The miter limit determines when an corner of an polygon will be capped while beveling.
The higher the miter limit the sharper corners will be allowed. See the table below.
miter limit=1.5
miter limit=3.0
type: Determines the bevel type at the edges of the extrude. See table below.
none
linear
convex
concave
stair
Spline
The Spline object is the father of every parametric spline object in Cheetah3D. To these objects belong the
Circle, Rect, Text, etc. The objects of the Spline family will be used to create other geometry through creator
objects like the Extrude or Lathe object.
Caution! The Spline object is the only object where the curve can be modified with the spline tools. If you
want to modify the curve of a parametric spline object you first have to make it editable.
There are two ways to create a Spline object. The first is to use the "Create Spline" tool from the menu
"Tools Spline Create Spline". The second way to create a Spline object is to make a parametric spline object
editable. You can do this by selecting a parametric spline object in the object browser and then using the
menu command "Objects Make editable". Now the parametric spline object will lose it's parametric
properties and will be transformed into a raw Spline object which is editable with the spline tools.
It is also possible to make the parametric spline object editable by double clicking onto the object icon in
the object browser.
Every spline has a sequence. Each subpath starts with yellow and ends in red.
Properties
approximation angle: Measure of the quality of the tessellated spline curve. The lower the angle the
higher the quality of the tessellated spline curve.
type: There are four different types of spline curves available, each with their own advantages.
Bezierspline: Cubic bezier spline. This is the only curve type where the tangents have a usage.
TrueType fonts are saved this way.
Beziercurve: Bezier curve of the order n, where n is the number of path elements in the
subpath.
Linear: Linear interpolation between the control points.
NURBS: Non Uniform Rational B-Spline.

subpaths: Number of subpaths. Each Spline object can have as many subpaths as you want.
path elements: Number of path elements in all subpaths. Moving to the starting point of each
subpath counts as a path element too.
lines: Number of lines of the tessellated spline curve.
Reverse Sequence Tool

Every spline has a beginning and an end. The sequence will be displayed through the color of the spline. The
beginning is yellow, the end is red.
Because many creator tools depend on the sequence of a spline it can be often useful to change the
sequence of a spline. This can be done with the reverse sequence tool. After applying it the beginning of the
former spline will be its end and the end of the old spline will be its beginning. The images below
demonstrate the before and after effects of using the Reverse Sequence Tool.
Modes
The create spline tool is available in all modes. Note that it makes most sense to use it in point mode since
you can only see the control points and point selections in point mode. This reverse sequence tool only
works on raw spline objects.
To use the reverse sequence tool, you just have to call the reverse sequence command from the menu
"Tools Spline Reverse Sequence". Every sub spline of a spline object which has a selected control
point will now be reversed. If no spline has a selected control point every spline will be reversed. It is
therefore strongly recommended to use this tool only in point mode, because it is the only mode
where you can see which control points are selected and therefore you can only see in this mode
which splines will be actually reversed.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Material shader
The "Material" shader is the starting point for many types of materials. You can use it to map a texture onto
a object but you can also use it for creating glasses or metals.
Properties:
Color: These parameters define the color of the material.
color: Color of the material.

texture: Color texture.
mix: Use this property to mix the color and texture values.
Ambient - Diffuse: These parameters effect the influence of the ambient and diffuse light components. For
normal non reflective and non transparent objects these values should be 1.0. But for glasses and metals
these values should be zero.
ambient: Scales the ambient light component.

diffuse: Scales the diffuse light component.
Specular: These parameters define the color and the size of the specular reflection. The intensity of the
specular reflection can be controlled with the color or texture parameters. White means full intensity for all
three RGB color components and black means zero intensity.
color: Color of the specular reflection.

texture: Specular texture.
mix: Use this property to mix the color and the texture.
type: Reflection type.
size: Size of the specular reflection. Higher size values mean sharper and smaller highlights.
size=8
size=16
size=32
size=64
size=128
Emissive: The emissive component will be just added to the final material color. It doesn't interact with the
lights in the scene.
color: Color value which will be added to the final material color.
Bumpmap: Bump maps alter the normal of a surface. This will not change the surface itself but it will change
how the surface interacts with the light setup. Therefore the surface looks uneven even although the surface
is plain.
texture: Defines the bump texture (bump map). A bump map is a

intensity: Defines the intensity (height) of the bumps
intensity=0.2
intensity=0.4
intensity=0.6
intensity=0.8
intensity=1.0
Reflection: With these parameters you can define how strong the material will reflect the environment. A
mirror for example will reflect the environment by 100%. The color of the reflected environment will be
added to the material. Use the color and texture parameters to filter the reflected environment.
color: Filter color of the reflection.

texture: Reflection texture.
intensity: Intensity of the reflection. Due to the fact that the reflection will be added to the material
color you have to downscale the material color or the diffuse properties to avoid over saturation.
ref intensity=0.2 ref intensity=0.4 ref intensity=0.6 ref intensity=0.8 ref intensity=1.0
dif intensity=0.8 dif intensity=0.6 dif intensity=0.4 dif intensity=0.2 dif intensity=0.0
angle: Use this propety to create blurred reflections. The higher the value the more blurred the
reflection will become. Increase the samples property to reduce noise of blurred reflections.
angle=0
angle=5
angle=10
angle=15
angle=20
samples: Samples for calculating blured reflections. Render time will increases linearly with the
number of samples.
environment map: Defines and environment map.
Transparency: The transparency parameters are needed when you want to make transparent materials like
glass. Increasing the transparency intensity automatically decreases the diffuse and ambient intensity to
avoid over saturation. For creating colored glass (red glass for example) it is nevertheless recommended to
set the diffuse and ambient intensity properties too zero.
color: Filter color for transparency.

texture: Transparency texture.
intensity: Transparency intensity.
index of refraction: The higher the index of refraction the higher the light will be bend while going
through the material.
use alpha channel: Check this property on to use the alpha channel of the color texture for
calculating the transparency.
fresnel: Check this on to add fresnel reflection to transparent objects.
Spot Light
The spot light is quite similar to the point light with the small difference that you can limit the illuminated
area to a small region, the spot.
Properties

cut off angle: The cut off property constrains the directions in which a spot light source can
illuminate.
smooth cut off: Increasing the smooth cut off property makes the edges of a spot light smoother.
See images below for an example of this in action.
smooth cut off = 0.0
smooth cut off = 5.0
spot type: Create either a round or a square spot light.

attenuation: The attenuation describes how fast the light intensity decreases. In nature, light
intensity decreases proportionally to 1/r^2 with r as the distance between the object and the light
source. In computer graphics there are other attenuation functions that are also widely used,
however.
shadow type: Check out the shadow type description of the point light.
Distant Light
The distant light emits parallel light. Due to the fact that the sun is far away from the earth, the light emitted
by the sun can be assumed as being parallel on the earth. The distant light object can be used nicely to light
outdoor scenes which are in nature illuminated by the sun.
Properties

width: Will be needed in a later release of Cheetah3D. It doesn't have any effect currently.
height: Will be needed in a later release of Cheetah3D. It doesn't have any effect currently.
Area Light
The area light simulates a rectangular light source. Due to the fact that some pixels in the scene are just partially
illuminated by the area light the area light creates soft shadows at these pixels and not hard shadows like the
point light.
Attention: The area light uses a lot of rendering time because the area light must be sampled many times to
create good looking shadows. Take care to only use area lights where they are really needed.
Properties

width: The width of the area light
height: The height of the area light.
samples: Number of samples at which the area light will be evaluated. The more samples you use the
smoother the shadows will become. The rendering time will increase substantially with more samples. See
the images below for a visual example.
samples = 32
The shadow is still quite noisy.
samples = 128
There is almost no noise in the shadow anymore.
attenuation: The attenuation describes how fast the light intensity decreases. In nature, light intensity
decreases proportionally to 1/r^2 with r as the distance between the object and the light source. In
computer graphics there are other attenuation functions that are also widely used, however.
Box Object
The box is a parametric polygonobject that is one of the simplest pre-defined shapes you can add to your
scene. Upon creation, it is a 1x1x1 cube at origin 0,0,0. Some variation is possible to the way the box is
constructed since you can choose how many sections will make up each axis.
Properties
Sections X: Specifies the number of sections the width of the box will be made up of. Defaults to 1.
Sections Y: Specifies the number of sections the height of the box will be made up of. Defaults to 1.
Sections Z: Specifies the number of sections the length of the box will be made up of. Defaults to 1.
Width (X): The width of the box
Height (Y): The height of the box
Length (Z): The length of the box
Ball Object
The ball is a parametric polygonobject which gives you a sphere which you can modify in a number of
different ways. It's basic form appears as below.
Some of the properties of the ball object allow you to change the shape of the basic sphere. In the image
below, the longitudinal and parallel parameters have been changed so that a pie-shaped segment is
missing, and a top and bottom slice have been taken too. You could use these parameters to generate 3D
pie charts, for example.
Properties
Radius: Specifies the radius of the ball.

Sections Longitudinal: Specifies the number of sections the longitudinal distance (equator) of the
ball will be made up of. Defaults to 30.
Longitudinal from: The starting angle of the sphere. Defaults to 0.
Longitudinal to: The ending angle of the sphere. Default to 360 (1 entire turn).
Sections Parallel: Specifies the number of sections the parallel distance (height) of the ball will be
made up of. Defaults to 15.
Parallel from: The upper-most angle that the ball is to start at. Defaults to 0 (the top).
Parallel to: The lower-most angle that the ball is to end at. Defaults to 180 (the base).
Cone Object
The cone is a parametric polygonobject which gives you a cone which you can modify in a number of
different ways. It's basic form appears as below.
Properties
cone will be made up of. Defaults to 30.
Sections Height: Specifies the number of sections the vertical axis of the cone will be made up of.
Defaults to 1.
Sections Ground: Specifies the number of sections the base of the cone will be made up of. Defaults
to 1.
Height: The height of the cone.
Radius: Specifies the radius of the cone at it's base.
Cylinder Object
The cylinder is a parametric polygonobject which gives you a solid cylindrical object which you can modify in
a number of different ways. It's basic form appears as below.
Properties
cylinder will be made up of. Defaults to 30.
Sections Height: Specifies the number of sections the vertical axis of the cylinder will be made up of.
Defaults to 1.
Sections Ground: Specifies the number of sections the base of the cylinder will be made up of.
Defaults to 1.
Height: The height of the cylinder.
Radius: Specifies the radius of the cylinder.
Disc Object
The disc is a parametric polygonobject which gives you a flat disc object with n corners which you can
modify in a number of different ways. It's basic form appears as below.
Properties
Corners: Specifies the number of corners the disc will have. Defaults to 8.
Sections Radius: Specifies the number of sections the radius (centre-outwards) will be split into.
Defaults to 3.
Radius: Specifies the radius of the disc. Defaults to 1.
Torus Object
The torus object is a very powerful and complex parametric polygon object which will allow you to produce
advanced shapes. The basic torus is a ring made of a tube that sweeps around back on itself to form a loop,
as below.
By varying the N1 and N2 properties (see below), significant changes can be made to the shape of the torus.
In the top left corner, N1 and N2 are < 1. In the middle both N1 and N2 = 1. In the lower right corner, N1
and N2 > 1. Even stranger shapes can be generated by moving the N1 and N2 values outside of the 0..2
range (negative numbers, for example).
Properties
Sections ring: Determines the number of segments the main ring of the torus will be divided into.
Higher values will result in smoother rings.
Sections tube: Determines the number of segments each segment of the ring of the torus will be
divided into. Higher values will result in smoother tubes which make up the ring.
Radius ring: The radius of the main ring.
Radius tube: The radius of the tube which will make up the ring.
N1: Determines the squareness of the main ring. Positive values approaching 0 are more square.
When at 1, a perfect circle will be formed. Above 1, the ring curves inwards.
N2: Determines the squareness of the tube which makes up the ring. This value operates in the same
way as N1, except it relates to the ring's shapes.
Plane Object
The plane is a very simple parametric polygonobject which gives you a flat surface. The only significant
modification you can make to a plane beyond its dimensions is to define its orientation. The image below
shows three different plane in the X (left), Y (middle) and Z (right) axis.
Properties
Sections Width: Specifies the number of sections the width of the plane will be made up of. Defaults
to 1.
Sections Depth: Specifies the number of sections the depth of the plane will be made up of. Defaults
to 1.
Width: The width of the plane.
Height: The height of the plane.
Orientation: Specifies the axis on which the plane will exist (see the image for a visual example).
Stairs Object
The stairs object is undoubtedly the most useful parametric polygonobject ever invented. But only if you are
creating architectural scenes. If you don't need a staircase, you probably won't find this feature too useful.
The stairs object makes it very easy to produce flights of stairs in various different configurations, saving a
lot of time and effort should you need them. The basic staircase appears below left. A somewhat more
exciting staircase appears below right.
Properties
Stair type: A 'ground' type staircase has a solid base all the way to the ground. A 'slanting' staircase
offers a slanted cavity underneath the stairs, ideal for storing away knick knacks out of sight.
Steps: Determines how many steps you'd like in your flight of stairs. Defaults to 5.
Step width: The width of the first step.
Step height: The height of the each step.
Step depth: The depth of each step.
Expand: Determines how much thinner or wider each steps gets as the staircase rises. -1 results in a
staircase that meets at a single point at the top.
Relief Object
The relief object is very much like a plain, in that it gives you a textured surface which you can manipulate to
achieve the affect you want. Since it is a parametric polygonobject, it is possible to change the properties of
the relief object and see how those changes affect the surface.
The relief object is very good at producing instant landscapes, which you may find useful if you're
developing a computer game, or need to render an outdoor scene.
Using the properties of the relief object, it is possible to achieve some very complex and detailed results,
since the relief provides built-in random texturing and contouring routines. The image below was generated
using a single relief for the landscape, and a single plain for the water. A light was added for the sun, and
the sky was a very large sphere. Final touches such as the lens flare and sky haze were added using
Photoshop after.
Properties
Sections Width: Specifies the number of sections the width of the relief will be made up of. Defaults
to 100. The higher this figure, the more detailed the relief will be.
Sections Depth: Specifies the number of sections the depth of the relief will be made up of. Defaults
to 100. The higher this figure, the more detailed the relief will be.
Note that the above two properties determine how many individual 'squares' make up the entire relief.
By default, 100x100 = 10000 polygons. Bear in mind that increasing these figures exponentially
increases the amount of CPU time any 3D scene will take to render or edit.
Width X: The width of the plain.
Height Y: The maximum height of the plain's highest peak.
Depth Z: The depth of the plain.
Noise: Determines how 'noisy' the surface of the relief will be by mixing in an low-pass (smoothed)
source of randomness.
Turbulence: Determines how 'turbulent' the surface of the relief will be my mixing in an unsmoothed
source of randomness.
Texture intensity: Determines how much of the texture map will be mixed into the surface of the
relief (allowing you to provide your own source of noise - see texture below)
Sea level: Determines how high the sea will be (ie, the level at which the bottom of the relief stops
and goes flat)
Plateau level: Determines how high the plateaus will be (ie, the level at which the top of the relief
levels out)
Edge at sea level: If ticked, the relief will not descend to sea-level at the edges. If you do not need a
coast-line, you would probably turn this off.
Texture: Use this to specify a texture bitmap to use (see texture intensity above)
Chain Object
The chain object allows you to position multiple copies of the same object along a spline. This can be very
useful if you want to model chains, fences, roads, 3D fonts etc. The chain object also allows you to rotate
every instance of the item in the chain by a definable angle which opens up even more possibilities.
In the example above, you can see how you can create a chain along a circular spline. The link was modeled
previously using ordinary polygon tools.
Usage
To use the chain object, just drag and drop a polygon object and a spline object into the chain object (see
image above). It is important that the polygon object (the link) is the first child of the chain object and the
spline object (the path) is the second child of the chain object. A different order won't work.
Take care to ensure that the link is orientated along the Z-axis, since the positive Z-axis of the link object
will follow the path when you set the alignment property to mix or constant.
Properties
Links: Determines the number of links in the chain.

From: Controls where the chain starts. The entire length (including all subpaths) of the spline is used
to calculate the starting position.
To: Controls where the chain ends. The entire length (including all subpaths) of the spline is used to
calculate the ending position.
Holes: Determines the ratio of holes the chain will have. The holes are positioned by random.
dH: Determines the change of the heading angle from link to link.
dP: Determines the change of the pitch angle from link to link.
dB: Determines the change of the bank angle from link to link.
Alignment: Determines how the links are aligned along the path
none: The links won't be aligned. They will be just moved to the path.
const: The links will be aligned along the local path segment.
mix: The links will be aligned in such a way that the transition between path segments is
smooth.
Boolean Object
The boolean object is a very powerful tool if you want to make some solid geometry. For example, you can
subtract one object's area from another. There are currently five different boolean operations available. See
the examples below for a clearer idea of how each boolean operation works.
Subtract
Union
Outside
Intersect
Inside
Attention: The boolean object only creates triangles. Avoid using this tool if you want to use the object for
subdivision modeling later on. The polygon count of the final object can also become high so be sure that
the job can't be done with other tools before you use boolean operations.
Usage
To use the boolean operations, just drag and drop two polygon objects into a single boolean object (as in
the image below). The first child object will be object A and the second one will be object B. Now choose the
boolean operation you want to perform from the properties editor. After positioning the child objects with
the transform tool you are done.
Properties
operation: Choose one of the five available operations. See the images above for an explanation of
the different operations.
meshed: If meshed is selected Cheetah3D tries to create a mesh where all polygons are connected to
each other. This results in a higher polygon count, but the mesh will be better quality.
inherit normals: To get your boolean object to inherit normals, every object (the boolean object and
its children) have to have a smooth tag. The boolean object will use the normals of the children
instead of calculating its own. This can help create a better looking mesh in cases where it is difficult
to find an adequate constrain angle in the smooth tag. However, please consider that these properties
get lost once the object is made editable.
Lathe Object
Many objects in nature have some rotational symmetry (like vases, apples, wheels, etc.). To describe such an
object we normally only need the profile of this object. The whole object can then be reconstructed by
rotating this profile around a rotation axis.
The Lathe object does exactly this. It uses spline objects to create rotational symmetrical meshes.
Usage
To use the Lathe object you just have to drag and drop a spline object into a Lathe object. The spline object
will now appear as a child of the Lathe object in the object browser. The spline is still fully editable so you
can fine adjust the object.
The apple above was created with this small scene.
Properties
sections: Describes into how many sections the rotation from angle from to angle to will be
partitioned. The more sections the smoother the final object will become.
angle from: The angle where the rotation of the spline begins.
angle to: The angle where the rotation of the spline ends.
rotation axis: The axis around which the spline should be rotated.
flip normals: Cheetah3D depends strongly on the orientation of splines. If your Lathe object turns
out to be black, your spline has probably the wrong clockwise orientation. You can fix this easily by
changing the fix normals property. Cheetah3D will now flip the orientation of the spline internally so
that the object should get the expected appearance.
cover: If you use a closed spline in the lathe object you can decide if the ends of a partially rotated
spline should be closed.
On the picture below a circle was rotated from 0-270 and the front was closed.
Tip
Use the approximation angle property of the spline object to adjust the sections along the spline curve.
Polyplane Object
The polyplane object offers a quick and versatile way of transforming a spline into a surface, as in the
images below. Whilst this is very easy to use, you should consider that the polyplane objects only generates
surfaces made of triangles - if you made the resulting polyplane object editable you end up with a polygon
object which only contains triangles. This will cause problems if you then go on to use the Subdivide tool or
Subdivide creator object.
Usage
To use the polyplane object, simply drag and drop a spline object into a polyplane object (as in the example
above). If the surface appears dark the winding of the spline is the wrong way round. Changing the sequence
of the spline with the reverse sequence tool can fix that problem.
Properties
none
Sweep Object
The sweep object allows you to make any kind of tube or hose. It's also great for creating some advanced 3D
texts. You just need one spline of the tube profile and one spline which represents the path of the tube. See
the image below.
Usage
To use the sweep object you just drag and drop two spline objects into the sweep object. The first spline (or
child) will be used as the profile. The second spline (or child) will be used as the path. See also the images
above. All children of the sweep object stay editable as always in Cheetah3D.
Properties
Flip normals: When off (by default), clockwise-winding splines result in the extruded polygons to be
outward-facing. Tick this to flip the normals so that they face inwards instead.
Cover: Controls whether the endings of the hose will be closed or not.
Symmetry Object
In nature almost every creature is symmetrical. They have two eyes, an equal number of legs, two arms, two
wings and so on. With the help of the symmetry object you only have to model one side of the creature
(assuming you're trying to model something real!). The second side will be automatically created through
mirroring the geometry. See the image below for an example. Only one eye, wing, foot and so on was
modelled. The counterpart was created through the symmetry object, saving considerable effort.
Usage
To use the symmetry object, just drag and drop a polygon object into a symmetry object (as in the examples
above).
Properties
Attraction radius: Determines how close a point has to get to the symmetry plane until it won't be
mirrored. Points within the attraction radius will be used as weld points to the mirrored geometry.
Symmetry plane: Controls on what plane the geometry will be mirrored.
Symmetrical: Determines if the points which are in the radius of attraction are snapped to the
symmetry plane or not.
Weld points: Determine is the geometry should be welded together at the points which are in the
attraction radius.
Circle Object
The circle is a parametric spline object. Whilst making use of this object, you should bear in mind that
Cheetah3D uses Beziere splines to create the circle, and as such it isn't possible to create a true circle.
However, the Beziere circle created by Cheetah3D comes very close to a true circle, which shouldn't present
much of a problem.
Properties
Width: Specifies the circle width.

Height: Specifies the circle height.
Orientation: Specifies the axis to which the circle will be perpendicular..
Cog Object
The cog object is a parametric spline object. It can be very helpful if you want to create a solid cog in
conjunction with the extrude creator object.
Properties
Teeth: Specifies the number of teeth the cog will have.

Radius outer: Specifies the biggest radius of the hole cog.
Radius middle: Specifies the radius where the teeth start to get thinner.
Radius inner: Specifies the radius where the teeth start.
Narrow: Specifies the how narrowed the ends of the teeth of the cog should be.
Orientation: Defines the axes to which the cog spline will be perpendicular.
Flower Object
The flower object is a parametric spline object. It creates a spline which looks like the contours of a flower.
Properties
Leaves: Specifies the number of leaves of the flower spline.

Radius outer: Specifies the outer radius of the spline.
Radius inner: Specifies the inner radius of the spline.
Narrow: Specifies the percentage by which the leaves get thinner at the end.
Orientation: Defines the axis to which the spline will be perpendicular.
Helix Object
The helix is a parametric spline object which creates a 3 dimensional spline with the shape of a helix. The
main purpose of the helix object is to model springs in conjunction with the sweep object.
Properties
Radius beginning: Specifies the radius at the beginning of the helix.

Angle beginning: Specifies the angle at the beginning of the helix.
Radius end: Specifies the radius at the end of the helix.
Angle end: Defines the angle at the end of the helix.
Height: Specifies the height (length) of the helix.
Sections: Specifies the number of path elements which build up the helix. More sections create a
smoother spline.
Orientation: Specifies the axis around which the helix is wound.
n-Edge Object
The n-Edge is a parametric spline object which gives you a regular n-Gon. It can be used for many technical
constructions or as a starting point for more advanced splines.
Properties
Radius: Specifies the radius of the n-Edge.

Edges: Specifies the number of edges of the spline.
Orientation: Defines the axis to which the spline is perpendicular.
Rect Object
The rect is a parametric spline object which creates a simple spline rectangle. It's basic form appears as
below.
Properties
Width: Specifies the width of the rect.

Height: Specifies the height of the rect.
Orientation: Specifies the axis to which the rect is perpendicular.
Star Object
The star object is a parametric spline object which gives you a star spline which you can modify in a number
of different ways. It's basic form appears as below.
Properties
Corners: Specifies the number of points on the star.

Radius outer: Outer radius of the star.
Radius inner: Inner radius of the star.
Twist: Define how much the corners of the star will be twisted around the orientation axis.
Orientation: Specifies the axis to which the star will be perpendicular.
Text Object
The text object is a parametric spline object. With help of the text object you can create a text spline out of
any in Mac OS X installed True Type font. This text spline can than be used with help of the extrude or the
sweep object to create a 3D Font.
To modify the font type of the text spline, Ctrl+Click on the text field of the text property. Now a pop up
menu will open where you get access to the standard Mac OS X font menu. Choose "Show Fonts" and select
the font you want to use. See also the image below.
Properties
Text: Specifies the text of the spline. To modify the font see above.
Orientation: Specifies the axis to which the text spline will be perpendicular.
Build Modifier
The build modifier uses a certain percentage of the polygons from the original objects to create a new one.
Using different types of build operations in conjunction withe the wide range of parent objects possible, you
can create some fascinating new objects using this modifier alone.
type=harlton, percentage=0.5
Properties
Type: Specifies the algorithm for choosing the polygons of the new mesh.
Percent: The percentage of polygons which will be used for creating the new object.
Mirror Tool
Many objects in nature and the technical world are symmetrical. To simplify the process of modelling it is
not always necessary to model two identical sides of a object twice. For this purpose you can use the mirror
tool which mirrors polygons or splines at a interactively defines mirror plane.
Completing a half cylinder with the mirror tool.
Mirroring a spline. Only paths which have a selected control point are mirrored.
Tip: You can also use the symmetry creator object to create symmetric objects.
Modes
This tool only works on raw polygon or raw spline objects. In all modes.
The mirror tool can mirror any type of data (points, edges or polygons) which can be in spline or
polygon objects. To perform the actual mirror operation select the data you want to mirror. Now
choose the mirror tool from the menu "Tools Mirror". The properties of the mirror tool will now
appear in the tool properties view. Set the properties of the tool (for an explanation of each property
see the properties description below) and perform either an interactive mirror operation or a manual
mirror operation.
In the case of the interactive mirror operation click into the 3D view and drag the mouse while still
holding the button pressed too the point where you want to mirror. The mirror plan will snap to that
point and the mirroring point will be highlighted blue. Once you've positioned the mirror plane
perform the mirror operation by releasing the mouse button.
The purpose of the manual mirror operation is to mirror at a plane which doesn't go through a point
of the object. If you perform an manual mirror operation just press the perform "OK" button in the
tool properties view after setting the tool properties.
Keys
none
Properties
coordinate system: Coordinate system after which the mirror plane will be aligned.
Object: The mirror plane is perpendicular too the axes of the local object coordinate system.
World: The mirror plane is perpendicular too the axes of the world coordinate system.
mirror plane: The axis to which the mirror plane is perpendicular. Doesn't have any effect if you are
in screen mode.
duplicate elements: Duplicates the mirrored geometry if turned on. Otherwise the selected geometry
will just be mirrored.
value: Sets the value of the manual mirror operation. The value defines the direction into the mirror
plane direction which should be mirrored.
apply: Performs a manual mirror operation.
Insert Point Tool

The insert point tool can be used to insert a point into an already existing polygon, edge or spline curve. It
can also be used to add new points to raw polygon objects. This points can then be used to build up a new
mesh with the create polygon tool.
Modes
The insert point tool performs different operations depending on which element is currently highlighted.
When the mouse cursor is over a polygon, you can insert a point into an already existing polygon. The
polygon will then be split into triangles. The point will be inserted at the position where the mouse
cursor was clicked.
When the mouse cursor is over an edge, you can insert a point into the edge of a polygon. You can
only see the new point when you are in point mode
If you click into the empty space a new point will be created on the coordinate axis plain which is
most straight forward to your active camera. You have to be in point mode to see the newly created
point.
To add a point into a spline object you have to be in point mode. Then you have to know that splines
in Cheetah3D start with a yellow color and end with a red color. Every path element has a beginning
and an end. To insert a point into a path element you have to click at the ending point of that path
element. Cheetah3D than tries to insert a point into the spline without changing the shape of the
curve.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Create Polygon Tool

The create polygon tool is needed to build up polygons from scratch. You can use either existing points or
create new ones for building up a new polygon.
Attention: Cheetah3D cares about the winding with which you create the polygons. So create your polygons
always with a counter clock wise winding. Otherwise the newly created polygon might appear dark shaded.
Modes
The create polygon tool is only available in point, edge and polygon mode and can only be applied on raw
polygon objects.
Let's assume that you already have a raw polygon object which contains some points. To build up a
new polygon you just have to click on the points in the 3D view which should be the corners of the
new polygon. The selected points should now appear blue and the new edges should appear in
orange. Once you have clicked on all corner points you have to click once again on the starting point
to finally create the polygon. Alternatively you can double click on the last point to create the
polygon .
To create new points with the create polygon tool just click into the empty space.
Keys
ESC: Reset the create polygon tool.
Properties
type: With this property you can choose the type or mode of the create polygon tool.
N-Gons: Creates N-Gons (polygons with N edges).
quad-strip: Creates a quad strip. This means that the first four points of the selection will be
used to create a quad. But now the last to points will be remembered by the tool and you only
have to add another two new points to create the next polygon.
triangle-strip: Same as a quad strip just with triangles.

new points in:
camera plain: New points will be created in the camera plain.

main plain: New points will be created on the main coordinates system plains.
Set Value
The Set Value function is used to move points, edges and polygons to precise locations. This is useful when
a polygonobject, spline or other element has been created and transformed in a "freehand" manner, and
you'd like the end result to align perfectly.
A single point of a box polygonobject. On the left, the point is just selected.
On the right, the Set Value function has been used to move the point to a new location.
Modes
The set value tool works in all modes, but behaves differently.
In Point mode, the currently selected points will all be moved to the coordinates provided.
In Edge mode, the currently selected edge will be moved to the coordinates provided. Where more
than one edge is selected, the coordinates specify the mid-point of the selected edges (ie, the
selection geometry is maintained).
In Polygon mode, the currently selected polygon will be moved to the coordinates provided. Where
more than one polygon is selected, the coordinates specify the mid-point of the selected polygons
(ie, the selection geometry is maintained).
In Object mode, the currently selected object will be moved so that its origin is at the coordinates
provided.
Use
If you want to use the Set Value function on points, edges or polygons, you first must make it editable (see
Polygonobject). Then simply chose Set Value from the Tools menu, pick which coordinate axis you want to
set, and type the coordinate values. You can also chose whether you want to specify World or Object
coordinates.
Properties
coordinate system: When set to Object, the coordinates specified will be relative to the object's
origin. When set to World, the coordinates are relative to the World's origin.
set X: When checked, the selected objects will be moved on the X axis.
value X: The X coordinate to move the selected objects to.
set Y: When checked, the selected objects will be moved on the Y axis.
value Y: The Y coordinate to move the selected objects to.
set Z: When checked, the selected objects will be moved on the Z axis.
value Z: The Z coordinate to move the selected objects to.
apply: Click the OK button to perform the Set Value function.
Quantize Tool
The Quantize Tool is used to snap the points of a polygon to a grid that is user-definable. This is useful
when a polygonobject, spline or other element has been created and transformed in a "freehand" manner,
and you'd like the end result to align perfectly.
Two points of a polygon object. On the left, the points do not align to the grid.
On the right, the Quantize tool has been used to make the points align perfectly.
Modes
The quantize tool works in the Point, Edge, and Polygon modes, but always performs its operation on the
coordinates of the points that make up the object you are editing.
Use
In order to quantize an object, you first must make it editable (see Polygonobject). Then simply chose
Quantize from the Tools menu, pick which axis you want to quantize to, and type the raster values for each
axis you'd like the points to be snapped to. Click on the OK button to apply the quantize. The default value
for the quantize grid are 0.05 on all axis. Note that you do not have to use the same value for each axis (ie,
you can force your points to snap in an oblong manner, rather than square)
Properties
quantize X: When checked, the selected points will be quantized on the X axis.
raster X: The unit value that points on the X axis will be snapped to. Defaults to 0.05.
quantize Y: When checked, the selected points will be quantized on the Y axis.
raster Y: The unit value that points on the Y axis will be snapped to. Defaults to 0.05.
quantize Z: When checked, the selected points will be quantized on the Z axis.
raster Z: The unit value that points on the Z axis will be snapped to. Defaults to 0.05.
apply: Click the OK button to apply the quantization to the selected points.
Burn Transform Tool

The purpose of the burn transform tool is to reset a previously transformed objects central point of origin,
whilst keeping the transformations made in place. This is useful for when you need to group objects
together and have them all moving around one single origin.
In the example below, we have moved a cube a little way off the central origin of 0,0,0 (where the blue and
red lines cross).
By using the burn transform tool, the moved cube stays in it's transformed position, but it's origin point is
now back to 0,0,0 (below, left). Now when we further transform the cube by rotating it, it does so around the
new origin point of 0,0,0 (below, right), instead of around it's own transformed origin point.
Modes
This tool works on polygon objects in object mode.
The burn transform tool is a headless tool which means that it doesn't show up in the tool view. To
use it you just select "Tools Burn Transform" from the menu. The burn transform tool always works
on the currently selected object.

Keys
none
Properties
none
Import Children Tool

The purpose of the import children tool is to combine two objects. You can use it to either combine spline
objects or polygon objects. However, you can't mix up the two different types.
Modes
This tool only works on raw polygon or raw spline objects. It can be used to import data from parametric or
creator objects.
The import child tool is a headless tool which means that it doesn't show up in the tool view. To use it
you have to drag and drop the object which you want to import onto the object which should finally
contain the data. In the picture below you can see a ball object that will be imported into a raw
polygon object. Now select the parent object (in our case the polygon object called "Tube") and call
the import children tool from the menu "Tools Import child". The data from the Ball object will be
copied to the polygon object. You can then remove the child object or re-use it somewhere else.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Array Tool
The array tool can be used to create multiple shifted copies of a polygon selection. It is quite similar to the
clone tool with the difference that it creates it copies in a three dimensional array and that the copies are
always aligned to the local X-, Y- and Z-axis.
Cloning the polygon selection two times along the negative X axis.
Modes
The array tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in polygon mode.
To use the array tool, select some polygons of a raw polygon object. If you don't select any polygons,
all polygons of the mesh will be cloned. Then call the menu command "Tools Polygon Array". Now
set all the necessary parameters of the array tool in the tool properties editor. After clicking the apply
button, the selected polygons will be cloned into an array.
Keys
none
Properties
copies X: The number of copies into the X direction.

copies Y: The number of copies into the Y direction.
copies Z: The number of copies into the Z direction.
holes: The percentage of copies which will be left.
offset: The length in which the copies will be created.
position variation: Adds a random vector to the position of the clone.
scale variation: Multiplies the scale of the clone by a random scale.

keep ratio: The object proportions will be retained while using the scale variation property.
rotation variation: Adds a random rotation to the clone.
apply: Press the apply button to perform the array tool.
Clone Tool
The clone tool can be used to create multiple shifted copies of a polygon or point selection. If you want to
create a fence for example, you can just create the first section (see the selection in the first image) of the
fence. Using the Clone Tool along with negative X axis, the rest of the fence can be produced (as in the
second image).
Cloning the polygon selection two times along the negative X axis..
Modes
The clone tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in polygon and point mode.
To use the clone tool, select some polygons/points of a raw polygon object. If you don't select any
polygons/points, all polygons/points of the mesh will be cloned. Then call the menu command
"Tools Polygon Clone". Now set all the necessary parameters of the clone tool in the tool properties
editor. After clicking the apply button, the selected polygons/points will be cloned.
Keys
none
Properties
copies: The number of clones to create.

holes: This value specifies the approximate ratio of holes to leave in the clone series. This number is
only a rough value since the holes will be created randomly. A value of 0.5 doesn't necessarily mean
that there are 50% holes.
direction: The direction in object space along which the clones will be created. The last clone will be
at the end of the direction vector.
scale: The scale value will be interpolated from (1,1,1) at the beginning to scale at the last clone.
rotation: The clones will be rotated along the direction axis starting from 0 and ending at rotation.
position variation: Adds a random vector to the position of the clone.
scale variation: Multiplies the scale of the clone by a random scale.
keep ratio: The object proportions will be retained while using the scale variation property.
rotation variation: Adds a random rotation to the clone.
apply: Press the apply button to perform the clone tool to the current selection.
Bridge Tool
The bridge tool is a great time saver if you want to connect two polygon groups. You can perform the same
task with the create polygon tool but it will take you much longer.
Modes
The bridge tool is only available in point, edge and polygon mode and can only be applied on raw polygon
objects.
Let's assume that you already have a raw polygon object which contains two polygon groups. To
connect the two groups chose the bridge tool from the menu bar and select a point on the border of
the first polygon group. The selected point will now appear blue (as in the first image). Now click on a
point in the border of the second polygon group. Cheetah3D will connect the two polygon groups
with a bridge (as in the second image).
Keys
none
Properties
none
Collapse Tool
The collapse tool can be used to remove polygons.
The quad in the middle was collapsed to its middle point.

Modes
The collapse tool can only be applied on raw polygon objects. It's available in point, edge and polygon mode.
To use the collapse tool, click on one polygon of a raw polygon object. The polygon will then be
removed and all its corners will be welded into one point which is either in the middle of the former
polygon or at the position of the mouse click.
Please use the weld tool for collapsing an edge.
Keys
none
Properties
to: Specifies the position to which the polygon corners will collapse.
click: The polygon corners will collapse to the position of the mouse click.
middle: The polygon corners will collapse to the middle point of the polygon.
Crumple Tool
In nature, many surfaces just aren't perfectly plain. They often have some irregularities, bumps or dents. The
purpose of the crumple tool is to add some noise to a polygonal mesh, making it easy to model realistic
objects.
Applying two subdivison steps after crumpling a box creates a nice ice cube!
Modes
The crumple tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's available in all modes.
To use the crumple tool, select a raw polygon object in the object browser. Then call the menu
command "Tools Polygon Crumple". Now set all the necessary parameters of the crumple tool in the
tool properties editor. After clicking on the apply button the mesh will be crumpled.
Keys
none
Properties
type: Specifies the direction in which the points will be moved:
normal: The point will be moved along the vertex normal.
axial: The point will be moved along the object coordinate system axis.
radial: The point will be moved along the connection line of the center of the object and the
point.
in and out:
On: The point will be only moved in the positive direction.
Off: The point can be moved in both directions.

radius X:
normal mode: Specifies the maximum distance the point can be displaced along the normal.
axial mode: Specifies the maximum distance the point can be displaced in the X direction.
radial mode: Specifies the maximum distance the point can be displaced.
radius Y:
normal mode: no effect.
axial mode: Specifies the maximum distance the point can be displaced in the Y direction.
radial mode: no effect.

radius Z:
normal mode: no effect.
axial mode: Specifies the maximum distance the point can be displaced in the Z direction.
radial mode: no effect.

apply: Press the apply button to perform the crumple tool.
Disconnect Tool
In Cheetah3D all polygon meshes which are created through parametric or creator objects are connected.
This means that the polygons share points with its neighboring polygons. This has the advantage that the
geometry won't break up if you just move around single polygons or polygon selections, but it is often
necessary to separate some polygons from a mesh. This task can be either done with the disconnect or with
the split tool. The difference between the disconnect tool and the split tool is that the split tool creates a
completely new polygon object from the polygon selection. If you use the disconnect tool instead, just the
selected polygons will be disconnected from their neighbors.
Moving up the polygon selection after performing the disconnect tool.

Tip: If you select all polygons and perform the disconnect tool without preserving the groups, you could
then use the subdivision tool to produce some interesting effects.
Modes
The disconnect tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in polygon mode.
To use the disconnect tool, select some polygons of a raw polygon object. Then call the menu
command "Tools Polygon Disconnect". Now set the properties of the disconnect tool in the tool
properties view. After pressing the apply button the disconnect tool will be finally performed.
Keys
none
Properties
preserve group: If turned off, every selected polygon will be disconnected from its neighbors. If
turned on, the polygon selection will be only disconnected from it's unselected neighbors.
apply: performs the disconnect operation.
Split Tool
The split tool is a little bit special, since it creates a completely new polygon object with the content of the
current polygon selection. It's therefore very useful if you want to split up one big mesh into several smaller
ones.
Modes
The split tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in polygon mode.
To use the split tool, select some polygons of a raw polygon object. Then call the menu command
"Tools Polygon Split". A new polygon object will be created in the object browser which contains the
former polygon selection. All tags and selections will also be copied to the new object.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Edge Rotate Tool

The edge rotate tool is a very specialized tool for rotating point, edge or polygon selections around an
existing polygon edge. The images below should describe its functioning quite well.
Modes
The edge rotate tool is available in point, edge and polygon mode and can only be applied to raw polygon
objects.
Depending on the mode in which you are select some points, edges or polygons with the select tool.
Now choose the rotate edge tool from the menu. Move the mouse cursor over the polygon edge
around which you want to rotate the selection. The edge should now be highlighted by Cheetah3D
(see image 1). Now you only have to drag the mouse either to the left or to the right to rotate the
selection around the highlighted edge.
Keys
none
Properties
quantize angle: With this property you can choose the step size used for rotating the point, edge or
polygon selections.
Fill Hole Tool

The fill hole polygon tool belongs to the family of tools which can be used to create new polygons. You
could also use the create polygon tool to fill a hole by hand but the fill hole tool saves you a lot of time
because you just have to click on one point on hole border. Cheetah3D will do the rest!
Modes
The fill hole polygon tool is available in point, edge and polygon mode and can only be applied on raw
polygon objects.
Let's assume that you already have a raw polygon object which contains a hole (as in the left image
below). To create a polygon which fills up the hole, just select the fill hole tool and click on one point
on the hole's border. Cheetah3D will now automatically detect the rest of the hole border and will fill
up the hole with a polygon (as in the right image).
Keys
none
Properties
none
Flip Normal Tool

Cheetah3D depends strongly on the winding of its polygons because it needs it to calculate the polygon
normals correctly. Sometimes if you load a 3D model which was created by a other modeling package it
could happen that the winding of the imported polygons is wrong. These polygons then appear much darker
in the 3D view because the polygon normal points into the wrong direction. See the first image below. The
flip normal tool can now change the winding of the wrong polygons and therefore fix that problem.
Modes
The flip normal tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in the polygon mode.
To use the flip normal tool, select some polygons of a raw polygon object. If you don't select any
polygons all polygons will be flipped. Then call the menu command "Tools Polygon Flip normal".
The winding rule of all polygons in your selection will now be changed.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Jigsaw Tool
The jigsaw tool can be used to cut along an arbitrary polygon selection. See the images below for a visual
example.
The cut follows the path of the polygon selection.

Modes
The jigsaw tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in polygon mode.
To perform the jigsaw tool you first have to make a polygon selection. Then click on an edge which
has at least one selected polygon as a neighbor. The polygons will be cut following the polygon
selection. The cut can still be adjusted by dragging the mouse along the edge you've clicked on. It is
also possible to move the cut in and out by pressing the shift key during the drag. After final
adjustment, release the mouse button and the operation will be completed.
Keys
shift : If you press the shift key while you drag the mouse, the cut will be moved in or out along the
normals of the surface.
Properties
select cut: Enable this option if you want the new cut to be selected in edge mode.
Linear Subdivide Tool

The linear subdivide tool performs a single linear subdivision process on a raw polygon object. It can be
used to increase the detail of a object. The subdivide tool retains all crease and polygon selection (material)
properties.
For more details about creases and multiple polygon selections, see the raw polygon object.
Before and after two linear subdivision steps.

Modes
The subdivide tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's behavior in point, edge, polygon and
object mode is the same.
To perform a linear subdivide, just select a raw polygon object from the object browser and use the
menu command "Tools Polygon Linear subdivide". Now a linear subdivision step will be performed
on the mesh. Creases and multiple materials will be retained.
If you are in polygon mode and you've selected some polygons the subdivision will be only performed
on the selected polygons.
Keys
none
Properties
Tips
none
Use the Subdivision object to perform interactive subdivision modeling, or to use Stam-Loop
subdivision processing.
Magnet Tool
The magnet tool is a very powerful tool when it comes to modelling organic shapes with high polygon
counts. There are various magnet types which can be used for many varying tasks.
The effect of four different magnet types (left back to right front: const, linear, sphere, bell)
Modes
The magnet tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's behavior in the point, edge and polygon
mode is the same.
To perform the magnet tool, just click on a polygon of a polygon object. All points which are within
the radius will now be weighted by the magnet type function. If you now drag the mouse around the
points will be moved corresponding to their weighting. To finalize the magnet operation release the
mouse button.
Keys
none
Properties
closest point: If turned on, the magnet center will be at the closest point of the mouse click.
radius: The radius of influence of the magnet tool.
type: The type of the magnet weighting function.
direction: The direction in which the points are attracted.
Normal Move Tool

The normal move tool is a very powerful tool when it comes to polygon modelling. Often it is necessary to
move a polygon, edge or point selection along it's normals. This task can be quite painful with the transform
tool but with the move normal tool it is just a simple mouse drag operation.
Note
The name Move Normal Tool can be a little bit confusing. It doesn't mean that the normals are moved, but
rather that the points are moved along their normals. The images below demonstrate how a group of
polygons have been moved along their normals. Note how the curvature of the sphere is still intact, but
more importantly, the moved polygons still have the same centre point as the rest of the sphere.
Modes
The move normal tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's behavior in point, edge and polygon
modes are the same.
To perform a normal move, just select the points, edges or polygons you want to move with the
select tool. Now choose the normal move tool with the menu command "Tools Polygon Normal
Move" or a hotkey. You can now drag and drop your selected points, edges or polygons along their
normals. Release the mouse button to finish the operation.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Normal Rotate Tool

The normal rotate tool can be used to rotate a polygon around it's normal. Be careful with multi-polygon
selections because the result probably won't be what you expected.
Modes
The normal rotate tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects.
To perform a normal rotate, just select the polygons you want to rotate with the select tool. Now
choose the normal rotate tool with the menu command "Tools Polygon Normal Rotate" or a hotkey.
You can now drag and drop your selected polygons around their normals within the 3D view. Release
the mouse button to finish the operation.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Normal Scale Tool

The normal scale tool scales a polygon selection without destroying the shape of the geometry. The name
Normal Scale doesn't imply that the normals are scaled, but that the tool tries to retain the normals of the
geometry during the scale operation.
Modes
The normal scale tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects.
To perform a normal scale, select the polygons you want to scale with the select tool. Now choose the
normal scale tool with the menu command "Tools Polygon Normal Scale" or a hotkey. You can now
drag and drop your selected polygons perpendicular to their normals within the 3D view. Release the
mouse button to finish the operation.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Optimize Tool
The purpose of the optimize tool is to remove unused points. For example, when you delete a polygon only,
the polygon face will be removed but not the points which built the polygon. To remove all unused points
with one simple click, use this tool. See the images below for a better understanding.
Modes
This tool works only on raw polygon objects.
The optimize tool is a headless tool which means that it doesn't show up in the tool view. To use it
you just have to select the raw polygon object from which you want to remove unused points and call
the menu command "Tools Polygon Optimize". Now all unused points of the polygon object should
have disappeared.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Point Slide Tool

The point slide tool can be used to move a point along its neighbouring edges.
Modes
The point slide tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's behavior in point, edge and polygon
modes are the same.
To perform a point slide, just click on a point of a polygon mesh. All edges which share this point will
now become highlighted. You can now drag and drop your selected point along the highlighted
edges. The current position of the point on the edge will be displayed as an offset ratio in the tool
view. Release the mouse button to finish the operation.
Keys
shift : Press the shift key while you drag the mouse if you want to slide the point over the ends of the
edges.
Point slide while pressing the shift key

Properties
none
Ring Cut Tool

The ring cut tool is an excellent way to increase the detail of a mesh as you can see in the pictures below.
The cut follows from polygon to polygon. If there are polygons with even number of edges the cut goes to
the other side of the polygon. If the cut hits a polygon with an uneven number of edges the cut stops.
Modes
The ring cut tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's behavior in point, edge and polygon mode
is almost the same.
To perform a ring cut, just click on an edge of a polygon. The cut will then follow from polygon to
polygon
If you don't release the mouse button after you've clicked on the edge, you can fine adjust the cut by
dragging the mouse to the left or right. It is also possible to move the cut in and out by pressing the
shift key whilst dragging.
Keys
shift : If you press the shift key while drag the mouse, the cut will be moved in or out along the
normals of the surface.
Properties
select cut: When this property is checked, the newly created cut will be selected.
Scalpel
Tool
The scalpel tool is a very powerful tool for editing polygon meshes. It can be used to cut arbitrarily from one
edge/point to another edge/point.
Modes
The scalpel tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's available in point, edge and polygon mode.
For every cut you need a starting point and an ending point. To choose your starting point, click on
an edge or point. If you've selected a point it will be displayed blue. If you've hit a edge it will be
displayed green. Now you can arbitrarily cut with as many points as you want through the polygon.
To finalize the operation select a second point or edge of the same polygon. Now the polygon will be
divided into two polygons with the cut going from the first to the last point. (see the images above)
The end point of the current cut will now be automatically chosen as the starting point for the next
cut.
Keys
ESC: Use the ESC key to reset the tool.
Properties
none
Shell
Tool
The shell tool is the tool of choice if you want to make walls for a house or if you want to create a solid
object out of a plain surface. The images below demonstrate how a simple polygon structure was turned into
a realistic wall structure quickly and easily using the Shell Tool.
Modes
The shell tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's only available in polygon mode.
To use the shell tool, select some polygons of a raw polygon object. Then choose the shell tool and
drag the mouse in the 3D view either to the left or right, depending on whether you want to perform
a negative or a positive shell. Once you are finished release the mouse button.
Keys
none
Properties
inside: This property decides if the shell is moved along the normal direction (outside) or against the
normal direction (inside).
angle: Determines which polygon neighbors of a polygon selection belong to a shell. Bigger values
allow more polygons too be grouped too a shell.
quantize: Set this property to 0 if you want to adjust continuously, otherwise this value determines
the distance you want to quantize the shell to.
Triangulate Tool
The triangulate tool simply triangulates all quads and ngons in a polygon selection, as in the images below.
Modes
The triangulate tool can only be applied to raw polygon objects. It's available in all modes.
To use the triangulate tool, select some polygons of a raw polygon object. If you don't select any
polygons all polygons will be triangulated. Then call the menu command
"Tools Polygon Triangulate". All quads and ngons in your selection will be replaced by triangles
now.
Keys
none
Properties
none
F-Curve Editor
If you haven't read the documentation about the Timeline and the Key Editor please read these sections first.
The F-Curve editor is a very powerful tool when it comes to fine tuning your animation. To open the F-Curve
editor click on the Timeline icon (the stop watch) in the tool bar. The timeline will now expand. By default
the Key Editor opens but you can change to the F-Curve editor by clicking on the small key icon in the lower
corner of the Timeline.
Now you should see the F-Curves of the selected object, tag or material if you've already recorded an
animation. If you haven't recorded keys the view will be blank.
F-Curve Editor Controls:
Now lets start with the four main parts of the F-Curve editor as shown on the screenshot above.
1. The parameters for which keys have been recorded. Only the F-Curves of selected parameters will be
displayed in the F-Curve view. To select a parameter just click on it.
2. The actual key.
3. The left tangent of a key. This tangent is only visible if you use spline interpolation.
4. The right tangent of a key. This tangent is only visible if you use spline interpolation.
Interpolation Types:
Cheetah3D currently offers four interpolations types. The interpolation type defines how the property values
between the keys will be calculated.
Linear interpolation: This is the most basic

interpolation type. The parameter will change
linearly (with constant speed) over the time.
This is the default interpolation type in
Cheetah3D.
Smooth interpolation: The smooth

interpolation type tries to create an smooth
curve through the given keys.
Spline interpolation: The spline interpolation is

the most powerful interpolation type because it
allows to define an arbitrary Beziere curve
between two keys. If you've chosen the spline
interpolation type there will be also shown the
tangents of the Beziere curves in the F-Curve
Editor. To manipulate the tangents just drag
them around with the mouse.
Flat interpolation: The flat interpolation type is
especially useful if you want to ease in or ease
out of an animation because the parameter
speed will be zero at the beginning or at the
end of the curve.
Setting Interpolation Types:

To set the interpolation type of keys you first have to select them with the mouse. Selected keys will be
highlighted in red. Now you just have to call the appropriate menu command for setting both tangents
"Animation->Tangent->Type", to set the left tangent "Animation->Left Tangent->Type" or to set the right
tangent "Animation->Right Tangent->Type". You can combine two different interpolation types arbitrarily.
Executing a Script
Executing a script is as easy as calling a menu command. Just go to the "Tools->Run script" menu item and
select the script you want to run.
The script menu displays the scripts in the same hierarchy as they are located in the "scripts" folder. The
"scripts" folder should be in the same folder as Cheetah3D itself. Otherwise Cheetah3D won't find the
scripting files.
To install a new script just copy it to the "scripts" folder. After restarting Cheetah3D it will appear in the
scripts menu.
Attention: Cheetah3D only adds files with the extension ".js" to the menu.
Bulge Modifier
The bulge modifier bulges an object along the X and Z axis. This can be used if you want to press a object
through a small hole. The same modifier can be used with a negative strength to blow up a object.
strength=-0.5
Properties

Type: See the description of the modifier object.
X-axis: Bulges the object along the X axis if ON.
Z-axis: Bulges the object along the Z axis if OFF.
Strength: The strength of the modification.
Shear Modifier
The shear modifier moves the vertices of a mesh linearly in one direction proportionally to the height of
each vertex. This modifier can be used to create cursive 3D Fonts for example, or to skew shapes so that
they tilt.
Properties

Type: See the description of the modifier object.
Distance: The maximum distance vertices are moved.
Angle: The direction in which the vertices will be moved.
Taper Modifier
The taper modifier can be nicely used to squash a object into a tube or something similar. The example
below demonstrates how a square was tapered along a curve.
Properties
Cage: See description of the modifier object.

Type: See description of the modifier object.
Strength: The percentage to which the upper part of the cage will be squashed together.
Curvature: Specifies if the object will be tapered linearly or along a smooth curve.
Twist Modifier
The twist modifier rotates the vertices of its parent object around the Y-axis. As with every modifier object,
a higher tessellation in the parent object will create better looking results.
angle=270
Properties
Cage: See description of modifier object.

Type: See description of modifier object.
Angle: Specifies how many degrees will be twisted.
Warp Modifier
The warp modifier warps a mesh around a cylinder or ball. With this modifier it is possible to create bent 3D
Fonts. See the images below for an example.
Properties
Type: You can whether to warp the mesh around a cylinder or around a ball.
Width: The width of the pink rect.
Height: The height of the pink rect.
Radius: Specifies the radius of the ball or cylinder.
From axial angle: Starting angle of the cylinder or ball. This angle is measured around the Y- axis.
To axial angle: Ending angle of the cylinder or ball. This angle is measured around the Y- axis
From cenital angle: Only used when "ball" was chosen as the "type" property. It specifies the starting
angle of the ball section.
To cenital angle: Only used when "ball" was chosen as the "type" property. It the specifies the ending
angle of the ball section.
Object Tag
Every object in a Cheetah3D document has an Object Tag, since it's functionality is to represent the type of
object conceptually in the object browser. By clicking on an Object Tag, the properties of the object will
appear in the properties editor. You cannot delete an object tag.
Special cases
If the object tag belongs to a camera object, it might have a purple background (as in the example below).
This indicates that this camera is currently active. Only one camera can be active at a time. You can switch to
a different camera by pressing the "Make active camera" button in the properties of the camera you want to
switch to.
UV Tag
The UV Tag extends polygon objects with editable UV coordinates. These coordinates are needed to texture
objects. You can only add a UV Tag to polygon objects.
Attention: The UV Tag tells Cheetah3D to export UV coordinates in the various 3D file exporters. Every
object which should export UV coords must have a UV Tag even if you only use its natural UV coords.
The UV Tag is initially one of the most confusing parts of Cheetah3D because it is both a tool and a tag.
However, once you get used to it, you will find that it is quite handy. To properly use the UV Tag you have to
understand how it works internally. There are three families of object on which the UV Tag behaves, each
with different results.
1. Parametric polygon objects
When you add a UV Tag to a parametric polygon object, the natural UV coordinates of this object will
be used if you set the mapping type to "UV-mapping". Every parametric polygon object has one set of
natural UV coordinates, but if the natural UV coordinates don't fulfil your needs, then you can use the
other mapping types which are available in Cheetah3D. The mapping types then overwrite the natural
UV coordinates of the parametric polygon object.
2. Raw Polygonobject
Raw Polygonobjects don't have natural UV coordinates, so you have to assign the UV coords to these
objects manually. With raw polygon objects it is also possible to map UV coords to single polygon
selections. See Example 2 to learn how to assign UV coordinates to polygon selections.
Also take care to read about the save property below.
3. Creator objects
Creator object also have natural UV coords but they normally inherit them from the child objects
which build up the creator object. The child object therefore needs a correctly assigned UV Tag so
that the creator object can calculate the natural UV coords. The other behaviour is like in parametric
objects.
Properties
position: Position of the texture mapping geometry. The position can also be modified with the move
tool when the UV Tag is selected.
rotation: Rotation of the texture mapping geometry. The rotation can also be modified with the rotate
tool when the UV Tag is selected.
scale: Scale of the texture mapping geometry. The scale can also be modified with the scale tool
when the UV Tag is selected.
adapt scale: Sets the scale of the UV Tag to the size of the bounding box of the tags owner.
mapping type:
UV: Three behaviors:
If the tag is assigned to a parametric polygon object, the natural UV coordinates will be
calculated.
If the tag is assigned to a creator object, the UV coordinates will be inherited from the
children.
If the tag is assigned to a raw polygon object, the saved UV coordinates will be used.
spherical: Spherical texture mapping geometry.
cubic: Cubic texture mapping geometry.
flat: Flat texture mapping geometry.
cylindrical: Cylindrical texture mapping geometry.
frontal: UV mapping via the screen space

map: Determines if UV coordinates should be assigned to all polygons or only to the selected
polygons.
offset U: Add an offset to the U coordinate.
offset V: Add an offset to the V coordinate.
scale U: Multiply the U coordinate.
scale V: Multiply the V coordinate.
save: The save button is only needed when you map UV coords to raw polygon objects. If you use
another mapping type than "UV-mapping" the UV coords will only be calculated on the fly for the 3D
preview and won't be written into the UV Tag. To write the coords into the UV Tag you have to press
the save button. Once this is done, the newly assigned UV coords will also be available for the creator
objects and can also be exported to files.
The advantage of this approach is that you often have models which already have UV coords. For
example, when you make a Parametric object editable, you can then adjust the UV coords without
damaging anything. You have to press the save button before the new UV coords will be stored in the
UV Tag. If you messed up your UV coords you just have to set the mapping type back to UV-mapping
and you get back your last saved state.
Example 1
Assign UV coordinates to parametric polygon objects:
Select the object.

Add the UV Tag.
Select the mapping type. And eventually position the mapping geometry.
You're finished!
Example 2
Assign UV coordinates to a polygon selection
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Select a raw polygon object.

Add the UV Tag.
Switch into polygon mode.
Set the UV Tag property map to selection.
Select the polygons to which you want to assign UV coordinates.
Select the mapping type in the UV Tag properties.
Position the mapping geometry with the transform tool. The UV Tag must be selected to see the
mapping geometry.
8. When you are finished press the save button. Now the new UV coords will be written into the UV Tag.
9. Continue with step 5 until you have assigned UV coords to all polygons.
Render Tag
The render tag offers object level access to some settings of the renderer. It allows for example to turn off
shadow casting for certain object. Since sometimes the shadow of some objects isn't even visible on the
rendered image. So the main purpose of this tag is to decrease rendering time.
Attention: You can only add a render tag to polygon objects. Since these are the only objects which are
actually visible in the renderer.
Properties
Cast shadows: Defines if an objects casts a shadow or not.

Receive shadow: Defines if an object receives shadows.
Visible in Radiosity: Use this property to remove an object from the radiosity solver. For example
windows (transparent materials). So light can pass through the window in the radiosity solution.
Receive Radiosity: If you are rendering a object with a glassy material it doesn't makes sense to
calculate the radiosity solution on that surface because glass doesn't have a diffuse material
component. So radiosity doesn't have any effect on the appearance of glass. To reduce rendering time
you can turn off the calculation of the radiosity solution on certain objects.
Filter texture: Disable that proberty if you want to disable texture filtering on that object.
Create Spline Tool

The create spline tool is a very important tool because custom made splines are very oftenly used in
conjunction with the Lathe, Sweep and Extrude objects, amongst others. The create spline tool can be used
to either create completely new spline objects, or to extend already existing splines.
Modes
The create spline tool is available in all modes. Note that it makes most sense to use it in point mode since
you can only see the control points and tangents in point mode. This spline tool only works on raw spline
objects.
To use the create spline tool, you first have to select it from the menu "Tools Spline Create Spline".
Click in the 3D view to create a new control point for the spline. The point will be created in the world
coordinate system plane which is most perpendicular to the camera. For example, if your camera
points in the Z-direction, the new point will be created in the X-Y-plane. You can now continue to
create one control point after another. If you drag the mouse after you've created a new control point,
you can adjust the tangent of the spline at that point.
If you want to create a closed spline, you can either click on the starting point of the spline, or you
can use the "close spline" button in the tool view.
Use the "new spline" button in the tool view to create a spline object with more than one spline curve.
Important
If you use the create spline tool and the selected object isn't a spline object, a new spline object will
be created. If you've selected an existing spline object before you use the create spline tool, the
selected spline will be extended.
Keys
none
Properties
new spline: Use this button to add a new spline curve to the selected spline object.
close spline: Use this button to close the active spline curve. A new spline curve will be started.
Hard Interpolation Tool

The hard interpolation tool is a very useful tool if you want to create edgy looking splines. It repositions the
tangents of the spline (only Beziere splines) in such a way that they have the a length of zero. See the
images for a better understanding.
Modes
The hard interpolation tool is available in all modes. Note that it makes most sense to use it in point mode
since you can only see the control points and tangents in point mode. This spline tool only works on raw
spline objects.
To use the hard interpolation tool, you first have to select the control points of the spline which
should be edgy with the select tool. Once you've made your selection call the menu command
"Tools Spline Hard Interpolation". The tangents of all selected control points will now be
repositioned to create a edgy looking spline.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Soft Interpolation Tool

The soft interpolation tool is a very useful tool if you want to create smooth looking splines. It repositions
the tangents of the spline (only Beziere splines) in such a way that you get a smooth curve at the control
points.
Modes
The smooth interpolation tool is available in all modes. Note that it makes most sense to use it in point
mode since you can only see the control points and tangents in point mode. This spline tool only works on
raw spline objects.
To use the soft interpolation tool, you first have to select the control points of the spline which
should be smoothed with the select tool. Once you've made your selection call the menu command
"Tools Spline Soft Interpolation". The tangents of all selected control points will now be
repositioned to create a smooth looking spline.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Equal Tangent Length Tool

Sometimes, it can be useful that the tangents of a Beziere spline have the same length. To perform such a
job you can use the equal tangent length tool.
Modes
The equal tangent length tool is available in all modes. Note that it makes most sense to use it in point
raw spline objects.
To use the equal tangent length tool, you first have to select the control points of the spline whose
tangents should have the same length. Once you've made your selection call the menu command
"Tools Spline Equal Tangent Length". The tangents of all selected control points will now be
repositioned so that both tangents of a control point have the same length. If no selection has been
made the command performs on all tangents.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Equal Tangent Direction Tool

Sometimes, it is useful that the tangents of a Beziere spline are on the same line. Equal tangent direction
doesn't mean that the tangents look into the same direction it just means that they are on the same line
passing through their shared control point.
Modes
The equal tangent direction tool is available in all modes. Note that it makes most sense to use it in point
raw spline objects.
To use the equal tangent direction tool, you first have to select the control points of the spline whose
tangents should be on the same line. Once you've made your selection call the menu command
"Tools Spline Equal Tangent Direction". The tangents of all selected control points will now be
repositioned so that the second tangent of a control point is on the same line as the first tangent of
the control point. If no selection has been made the command performs on all tangents.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Join Segment Tool

Often you have more than one spline path within a spline object which you want to connect. To do this you
have to use the join segment tool. See the images below for an example of where two segments of a Beziere
curve are joined.
Attention: You can only connect splines which are within the same spline object. If you want to connect
splines from two different objects you have to import the splines from the second spline object into the first
one with the import child tool.
Modes
The join segment tool is available in all modes. Note that it makes most sense to use it in point mode since
you can only see the control points and its selections in point mode. This spline tool only works on raw
spline objects.
To use the join segment tool, you first have to choose the paths which should be joined. To do this
select from the first path any control point you want. Do the same with the second spline. You now
have two segments which have a selected control point. Now apply the menu command
"Tools Spline Join Segment". The two segments will now be joined the following way. The end of the
first path will be connected with the beginning of the second path.
Keys
none
Properties
none
Break Segment Tool

You often have to separate a spline curve into two separate splines. To do this you have to use the break
segment tool. See the images below where one Beziere spline is broken up into two separate splines.
See the colors of the second spline. You can easily see that the second image consists of two splines
due to the colouring of the spline after the Break Segment Tool has been used.
Attention: You can only perform one break at once.
Modes
The break segment tool is available in all modes. Note that it makes most sense to use it in point mode
since you can only see the control points and its selections in point mode. This spline tool only works on raw
spline objects.
To use the break segment tool, you first have to choose the control point where the break should
happen. Now apply the menu command "Tools Spline Break Segment". The old spline is now broken
up into two splines. Please note that you can only perform one break at once.
Keys
none
Properties
none

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Cheetah3D is a lean, fast and elegant 3D modelling, rendering and animation tool for Mac OS X with an easy

Hints and Tips

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

select the camera projection

If you have a one button mouse:

alt + mouse drag: rotate camera around the selected object

alt + command + mouse drag: move camera in and out

alt + shift + mouse drag: turn camera

alt + right mouse button drag: zoom camera in and out

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

The object/tag/material properties editor

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

Use it to set the height of the image to be rendered.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

color: The color of the light source.

shadow color: The color of the shadow.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

Objects and Tags

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

Create a Text spline from the tool bar.

Scene in the object browser.

3D Font in the 3D view.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

X, Y or Z direction using the appropriate icons in the tool bar.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

Multiple polygon selections

polygon selection: The current polygon selection.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

Catmull- Clark Subdivide Tool

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

The original mesh which consists of triangles and quads.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

The original mesh which consists of triangles and quads.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

Type: Specifies which vertices will be effected.

Constrained: All vertices are

Unconstrained: All vertices are

Cage: Specifies the size of the cage.

We start with a simple polygonal

Now we create a symmetry modifier

Cage: Only the vertices within the

We do the same with a subdivision

Finally we attach a displacement

2001-2004 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

Offset: Specifies the maximum offset.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

world space object space

natural UV coords (left) vs. transformed UV coords (right)

Create a ball object and make it editable.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.

Cheetah3D's built-in renderer currently offers the following features:

Environment mapping: Environment mapping is a trick to produce fake reflections. To use

All images must be the same size.

Environment mapping in combination with bump mapping.

quality of HDRI renderings.

2001-2005 Martin Wengenmayer. All rights reserved.